Glasshouses of the TU Dresden Botanical Garden (Botanischer Garten der TU Dresden)

Dresden's botanical garden began alongside the Surgical-Medical Academy: according to the Das alte Dresden lexicon it was laid out from 1818 to plans by the court gardener Carl Adolf Terscheck, and Wikipedia gives an opening in 1820 after five years of work. Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach directed it for fifty-nine years, from 1820 to 1879, turning it into a respected scientific institution that issued a seed exchange list from 1821.

After the academy closed in 1864, director Oscar Drude initiated the decision, taken in 1883, to move the garden. The old site closed on 1 December 1890, and the new garden, laid out by garden inspector Franz Ledien on plant-geographical lines, opened in the Großer Garten on 1 April 1893. A Victoria regia house was completed in 1907 and rebuilt in 1938-1939, and a cactus house was built in 1937.

The air raid of 13-14 February 1945 devastated the garden: nineteen bombs shattered the glazing and most of the tropical plants died, though some were sheltered for two years in the glasshouses at Pillnitz. The Technical University took over the garden in 1949. The palm house was lost, destroyed in 1945 according to Das alte Dresden, demolished in the early 1950s when a relocation was being considered according to Wikipedia. The Americas tropical house was rebuilt in 1975 and the Asia-Africa tropical house was built in 1979-1981 on the site of the old palm house.

The glasshouses stand together within the garden, which covers 3.25 or 3.46 hectares depending on the source, in the north-west corner of the Großer Garten. Three display houses are open to visitors, backed by five propagation houses; Wikipedia puts the total glazed area at about 1,000 m², a figure the Das alte Dresden lexicon applies to four display houses.

The large tropical house, devoted to the Palaeotropics, dates from 1979-1981 and occupies the site of the destroyed palm house. It includes an aquatic section displaying water plants. The Americas tropical house, rebuilt in 1975, gives its rear part to the Neotropical rainforest, while another section, named after Victoria cruziana, shelters container plants over the winter. The succulent house opens with a vestibule of orchids and carnivorous plants before moving on to arid climates. No architect is named for these functional post-war buildings in the sources consulted.

Of the 9,000 to 10,000 species grown in the garden, about 3,000 live under glass. The large tropical house shows the tropical flora of Asia and Africa, with aquatic plants in its aquarium section. The Americas house displays species of the Neotropical rainforests, while its Victoria cruziana section takes in the garden's container plants for the winter. In the succulent house, orchids and carnivorous plants near the entrance lead on to plants from the arid regions of Africa and the Americas.

Outdoors, the garden is arranged on geographical lines and includes a garden of useful plants, a systematic section, beds on plant adaptations, some 800 annual summer flowers and a Tertiary garden displaying fossils from lignite deposits.

The garden lies on Stübelallee in the north-west corner of the Großer Garten, right beside the Gläserne Manufaktur. It is wheelchair accessible and receives around 100,000 visitors a year, 121,700 in 2024. The glasshouses, which open a little later than the garden, take about an hour; they make a warm stop in winter, while spring and summer bring out the outdoor beds. The outdoor Tertiary garden, with its fossils from lignite deposits, makes a good complement, and the visit continues naturally along the avenues of the Großer Garten.