Grandes Serres du Jardin des Plantes

The Grandes Serres rise as a series of four glass and iron pavilions, anchored by the massive central Palm House. King Louis the thirteenth founded this garden as a medicinal plant collection, but by the mid-nineteenth century, these structures arrived to showcase exotic botany from the colonies. Inside, heat and humidity mimic tropical climates, sustaining plants that would die in a Parisian winter. Botanist André Thouin once organized the thousands of species here, convinced that nature served the public good through scientific study.