Tropical an subtropical greenhouses

Take a virtual tour of the greenhouses!

In the middle of Innsbruck, visitors can take a trip into the world of tropical rainforests in two greenhouses.

In the warm and humid epiphyte house, we display a wide variety of epiphytes on trunks and trees. In addition to orchids, numerous bromeliads grow on trunks, where they have access to more light but have to make do with very little water and nutrients. They have adapted to life in the canopy with a wide variety of strategies.

The large tropical house shows the canopy-like structure of the rainforests. Here, our trees grow all year round and faster than in any other part of the garden. Visitors can stroll among exotic plants from America, Africa and Asia, accompanied by exotic smells and the gurgeling of water. In between, you can discover well known crops, some of which have become an integral part of our everyday lives, such as coffee and cocoa trees, cotton shrubs and mango trees.

Just one step away from the tropics, you can immerse yourself in the diverse flora of the deserts and the Mediterranean climate.

The diversity of the cacti and spurges of the American and African arid regions provide a small insight into how plants have adapted to long periods of drought in the most diverse ways. Columnar or spherical growth forms, felt-like hairs or the transformation of leaves into thorns enable them to survive in heat and drought.

In the northern section of the glasshouse, you travel to the Mediterranean zone of Australia: the fragrant eucalyptus and common red bottlebrush line the path. The olive tree and myrtle remind us of Mediterranean biodiversity, while. The dragon tree and rosette thickets give an idea of the richness of the Canarian flora. Regardless of which continent the plants originate from, their adaptation to the Mediterranean climate with its hot, dry summers and rainy winters is the same: tough evergreen leaves that are often covered in a layer of wax.