Jardín Botánico (Jardín de Aclimatación de La Orotava)

18th-century royal botanical garden with a vast Moreton Bay fig and tropical specimens

The Jardín Botánico, formally known as the Jardín de Aclimatación de La Orotava, is one of the oldest botanical gardens in Spain, founded in 1788 under Carlos III. The garden's original purpose was to serve as an acclimatisation station for plants being brought from Spain's tropical colonies — a staging post between the tropics and the mainland.

The garden is compact — about three hectares — but remarkably dense with specimens: palms, cycads, ferns, dragon trees, and the extraordinary Moreton Bay fig that now dominates the centre of the garden with its enormous buttress roots. The collection includes plants from the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Australia, many of them very old. Admission is cheap and the garden is usually peaceful. It is about a kilometre south of the town centre.

things to do sight
A story
The garden was founded in 1788 by royal decree of King Charles III, with the explicit purpose of acclimatising plants from Spain's tropical colonies for eventual cultivation in mainland Spain. The plan never quite worked — the mainland climate proved too cold for most specimens — but the garden thrived in Tenerife. The star exhibit is a Moreton Bay fig tree planted in 1860: its aerial root system now covers several hundred square metres of ground and is one of the most photographed trees in the Canary Islands.