2511 ROMANIA (Bucharest) - Bucharest Botanical Garden

2511 Bucharest Botanical Garden in late 1970's

The first botanical garden in Bucharest was founded in 1860 near the Medicine Faculty by Carol Davila, with the significant financial backing of Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza, at the time the leader of the nascent Romanian state. Its first director was the botanist Ulrich Hoffmann, followed six years later by Dimitrie Grecescu. The garden was eventually moved to its current location (in the Cotroceni neighbourhood) in 1884 by Dimitrie Brândză, a Romanian botanist, and Louis Fuchs, a Belgian landscape architect. The gardens were opened in 1891, when the building of the greenhouses finished.

The garden, administratively part of Bucharest University’s Botanical Institute, today extends over an area of more than 17 hectares, and hosts more than 10,000 species of plants. Of particular note are the exotic flowers and the bizarre Symphytum ottomanum, a plant which can appear to vanish without trace only to reappear up to 50m away. In the Garden there is a Botanical Museum in a building of the Brâncovenesc style, located near the entrance gate, where more than 5,000 plant species are displayed, including 1,000 exotic plants.

About the stamp
Prepaid postcard (the coat of arms of the Socialist Republic of Romania, 1965-1989)

References
Bucharest Botanical Garden - Wikipedia
Botanical Gardens (Grădina Botanică) - In Your Pocket

Sender: Eugen
Sent from Bucharest (Bucharest / Romania), on 26.10.1981