Exhibition Greenhouse of the Castilla-La Mancha Botanical Garden (invernadero de exposición)

The Castilla-La Mancha Botanical Garden is one of the youngest in Spain. The project and its site were presented on 6 May 2003 by the rector of the University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM), the mayor of Albacete, the regional minister for Science and Technology and the president of the Spanish Association of Botanic Gardens, among others, who planted a holm oak and unveiled a commemorative monolith on the land. The foundation set up to fund and run the garden, backed by the city, the provincial Diputación of Albacete and the UCLM, was presented on 11 February 2008, and its board, the patronato, was formed on 30 May that year.

The garden was inaugurated in October 2010. It now holds about 28,000 living plants belonging to some 2,100 taxa, and its seed bank, founded in 2007, held more than a million seeds in over 1,000 accessions in January 2020, according to Wikipedia.

On 4 December 2020 the exhibition greenhouse was the setting for the presentation of a certificate of excellence in ecological management, making the garden the first in the Iberian Peninsula to be certified in this way. The award recognises environmentally friendly pest management and plant-health treatments, waste management and energy optimisation.

The exhibition greenhouse belongs to the 'classic' half of the garden, given over to the collections expected of a botanical garden, as opposed to the recreated regional habitats that fill the other half of the 7 hectares. It covers 600 m² and is divided into two halves with opposite climates. In the humid tropical half, warmth and high air humidity, noticeable as soon as one steps in, recreate the conditions of tropical forests. The dry tropical half is laid out around four central beds holding species from the deserts of the Americas and Africa and from the arid zones of the Canary Islands.

A rose garden has been planted against the greenhouse. The sources consulted do not name the architect or describe the structure and materials. The garden is entered through a broad semicircular plaza framed by two symmetrical buildings, the garden's social building and the UCLM Botanical Institute; paved in slate and limestone to evoke the region's two main geological halves, it sends out paths arranged like the sails of a La Mancha windmill.

The humid half gathers ferns, including tree ferns of the genus Dicksonia, Cyrtomium and Pteris, primitive gymnosperms such as Zamia, Macrozamia and Cycas, palms and other plants of humid tropical forests. It also keeps a sample of Canary Islands laurel forest and another, tall group of tropical rainforest species.

The dry half shows the warmth-loving flora of the Canaries, with several dragon trees (Dracaena draco), Ceropegia, Rumex lunaria, Aeonium and Senecio kleinia, alongside African succulents, cacti and agaves; the garden's website also mentions aloes, euphorbias, kalanchoes and even carnivorous plants. The aim is to show the plant diversity of the world's warm regions, which include several of the planet's major biodiversity hotspots.

The garden lies on the southern side of Albacete, on the Avenida de La Mancha, beside the pedestrian greenway leading to La Pulgosa peri-urban park. A rose garden adjoins the greenhouse; the garden also has a systematic collection, where plants are arranged according to their evolutionary relationships, and a collection of cacti, agaves, yuccas and cold-hardy palms grown outdoors.

Allow an hour and a half to two hours to add the forty or so Castilla-La Mancha habitats recreated in the other half of the site, among them lagoons modelled on the Tablas de Daimiel and the Ruidera lakes, or the oak walk. The garden's website offers a map, an events calendar and a virtual tour to help plan a visit.