The Orangery Linneanum

The Orangery of the Botanical Gardens was built over 200 years ago and is one of few orangeries in Sweden that is still used for its original purpose. The orangeries had their heyday in Sweden from the late 1600s to the early 1800s. Thereafter, they were replaced by greenhouses constructed entirely of glass.

In the cool section of the Orangery, the Frigidarium, you will find not only the Linnaean laurel trees, but also many other typical hothouse plants; figs, oranges, olives, laurustinus and hundred year-old agaves. The orangery also houses an extensive cactus collection.

The oldest cactus is an Andes organ pipe, Cereus hildmannianus. It might be the same plant that was moved from the old botanic garden (The Linnaeus Garden) to the Orangery Linneanum in the end of the 18th century. It may thus have been grown already by Carolus Linnaeus.

The plants of the Orangery are moved outside into the gardens in the summertime and remain there from May to October. Exhibitions, concerts and parties are organised in the Orangery during this period

The Linneanum building

The building that houses the orangery is called ’Linneanum’. It was built using money donated to the University by King Gustav III in 1787, and designed by the architect O. S. Tempelman, with some neoclassical alterations by L. J. Despréz. In addition to the orangery, Linneanum houses the magnificent Linnésalen (Linnaeus Room) and Thunbergsalen (Thunberg Room, which previously housed the University’s herbarium). Both of these rooms were renovated to their original glory for the Linnaeus Tercentenary in 2007.

Linnaeanum opened on 23rd May 1807, on the centenary of Carl Linnaeus’s birth. Three years previously, all the plants had been moved here from the old orangery in The Linnaeus Garden. Among the plants that still survive from Linnaeus’s time are the "Linnaeus laurels", three laurel trees that have been growing in giant planters for more than 250 years.