UC Davis Botanical Conservatory

The University of California, Davis Botanical Conservatory began in 1959, when a teaching collection of coleus was set up in a 3,600 sq ft (about 335 m²) greenhouse that the university now names as the conservatory.

The collection has grown mostly through donations. In 2016 its staff horticulturist told the student newspaper The Aggie that the aim was less to expand than to maintain, and that a plant was never turned down if it served teaching. Tim Metcalf, now director emeritus, recounts working as a student assistant in the botany greenhouses from January 1966 and later returning as understudy to the then director; a university news item dates his arrival at the conservatory to 1971. He retired in July 2008 after nearly forty years of managing the collections. He lists among his high points study trips to Mexico in 1986, Namibia, South Africa, Madagascar in 1993 and Borneo in 2000, and the first West Coast flowering of a corpse flower he had grown from seed. The university also credits him with helping to open the site to the public and with creating its student internship programme.

In 2022 alumni, friends and colleagues launched an endowment in his name. Metcalf pictures a new facility in which plants would grow out of their pots, with finely tuned ventilation, humidity, light and temperature: a wish, not an announced project. The conservatory's home page now highlights a 6,000-dollar crowdfunding campaign to catalogue the plants.

The conservatory occupies three greenhouses standing side by side on the north side of Kleiber Hall Drive, behind Storer Hall. According to the university, the entrance is the middle greenhouse, at its north end, on the car park side away from the road; the headhouse stands close by. The official website speaks of a 3,600 sq ft greenhouse, a university news item of a 3,000 sq ft complex.

The envelope is glazed. The student newspaper The Aggie wrote in 2016 of greenhouses seen "behind the glass" and glowing orange at night, and the captions of the official photo gallery mention glass walls through which neighbouring rooms can be seen.

The interior is divided into climate rooms: a hot, humid tropical room, a cool room, desert rooms including a heated but dry African desert room, and a damp temperate fern room. One visitor recorded in 2013 more than 75 °F (about 24 °C) and over 80 per cent humidity in the hot, humid part. Aisles are narrow, and access for people with reduced mobility is limited to the main aisle and the entrance of the smaller rooms. Much of the planting is in pots, and tables of succulents stand outdoors.

The conservatory claims more than 4,000 species from more than 150 families, close to half of the world's plant families according to its notable-plants page. Counts vary from year to year: more than 3,000 species in the 2016 article and on the About page, more than 5,000 in a 2022 university article.

Three groups shape the site: tropical plants (orchids, aroids, epiphytes), arid plants (cacti, aloes, agaves, succulents) and carnivorous plants (pitcher plants, Venus flytraps, sundews). The sources also name Welwitschia mirabilis, grown in tall pipes to house its long taproot, the Wollemi pine, cycads and the corpse flower: the university was among the first places to grow one, and passed offspring to Sacramento State and UC Berkeley. A 2013 visitor also notes two rare plants from Socotra, the cucumber tree (Dendrosicyos socotranus) and the Socotran fig (Dorstenia gigas), which Davis is said to be among the few American institutions to propagate regularly. Biology, art, English and polymer science classes all bring students here.

The greenhouses are reached by following Kleiber Hall Drive north, past the campus fire and police buildings; the entrance is the middle greenhouse, on the car park side. Guided tours last about an hour, with 45 minutes the recommended minimum. The air is warm and humid: the university advises light layers and few bags because the aisles are narrow, and, in summer, scheduling the visit in the morning. The conservatory also opens during Picnic Day, the campus open house (12 April in 2025), and holds plant sales, one of them on 17 October 2026. Close by, the Joseph and Emma Lin Biological Orchard and Garden and the Ernest Gifford Cycad Garden, on the south side of Storer Hall, extend the visit outdoors.