Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens Conservatory

The conservatory is inseparable from South Park, one of the parks Frederick Law Olmsted designed for Buffalo. Laid out between 1894 and 1900 on 156 acres of farmland, the park was to pair a large glasshouse for tropical plants with an arboretum for hardy species. In 1894 the botanist John F. Cowell was appointed first director; he would spend decades exploring the Americas and the Caribbean, sending back seeds and young plants.

Designed by Lord & Burnham after English glasshouses, the conservatory was built between 1897 and 1899 by a Buffalo contractor, George P. Wurtz & Son, for $130,000. When it opened in 1900 it was the third-largest public greenhouse in the United States and ranked ninth in the world, and the 1901 Pan-American Exposition brought crowds. Six greenhouses were added in 1907.

After Cowell's death in 1915 the site declined, and in 1929 the city considered demolishing it. Federal funding allowed Lord & Burnham to renovate the building completely in 1930. Damaged in the blizzard of 1977, it was rescued by a citizens' movement led by Florence DaLuiso, which gave rise in 1979 to the Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens Society. Erie County bought the property for one dollar in 1981, and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. The heating was replaced in 1999, the palm dome renovated in 2000 and houses 11 and 12 in 2005–2007. An expansion project is under way.

The building combines glass, wood and steel. Its three-domed silhouette, inspired by the great English glasshouses, makes it one of only two Victorian conservatories of the type left in the United States. The main Palm Dome rises 67 feet (about 20 m) and has more than 3,000 panes of glass, making it the largest house in the gardens; its 2000 renovation added steel supports and safety glass.

A sequence of numbered themed houses, some added in 1907, extends from the central dome. The current expansion, led by Bucholz McEvoy Architects with Wendel as architect and engineer of record, adds a new welcome centre, classrooms, a climate-controlled event space called The Canopy, a central courtyard and an atrium, and converts a former growing house into a solarium, with solar panels and energy-saving systems.

The Palm Dome holds palms and other plants that thrive in warm, humid conditions: betel nut palm (Areca catechu), foxtail palm (Wodyetia bifurcata), old man palm (Coccothrinax crinita), silver Bismarck palm, cacao, Hong Kong orchid tree (Bauhinia × blakeana) and an Encephalartos altensteinii, the largest cycad in the collection.

The other houses each have their own theme: rainforest, koi pond, desert (cacti, euphorbias, agaves), tropical and coniferous bonsai, begonias, carnivorous plants, orchids and seasonal flowers, a tropical orchard of fruiting plants, and a house devoted to 'corpse plants', known for their foul smell. Asian Rainforest and Aquatic Garden exhibits were installed in 2017.

The conservatory stands in South Park in south Buffalo, on an 11.57-acre site that also includes outdoor gardens. The route runs from the central dome through the themed houses; allow one to two hours. The calendar has regular fixtures: evening orchid events in March, a scarecrow trail in autumn, and holiday displays with special hours in December. The visit can be extended into Olmsted's park, with its arboretum and pond. Expansion works may affect access while they last.