About Verrière

Verrière is an independent atlas of the world's botanical and historic greenhouses. It started from a simple question: where can you see, today, the finest glass architecture ever built for plants — and what story does each one tell?

How greenhouses are chosen

The catalogue brings together greenhouses that are (or were) open to the public and are of architectural, historic or botanical interest: Victorian palm houses, orangeries, modernist domes, the great tropical halls of zoos, contemporary conservatories. Agricultural and commercial greenhouses are not included.

Each entry is built from public sources: official websites of botanical gardens and zoos, institutional archives and publications, specialist press, online encyclopedias. Research is carried out in the languages of the countries concerned. When a fact cannot be verified it is not published — an incomplete entry is better than an inaccurate one. The main sources are listed at the bottom of in-depth entries.

The photos

Every photo comes from Wikimedia Commons and is published under a free licence (Creative Commons BY or BY-SA, or public domain). Each image is credited to its author, with its licence and a link to the original page. If you took one of these photos and would like its credit changed, please get in touch.

How the site is funded

Verrière is free. It is funded by partner links (tickets, activities, hotels), labelled as such on every entry: if you book through them we earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. These partnerships have no influence on which greenhouses are included or how they are described. The site may also show one discreet ad slot.

Corrections and suggestions

A greenhouse missing? A wrong date? A greenhouse that closed or reopened? Corrections are welcome: they are checked and then added to the catalogue, which grows continuously.