Kebun Raya Cibodas greenhouses (Nepenthes House and Conservatory)

Kebun Raya Cibodas was founded on 11 April 1852 as the Bergtuin te Tjibodas, the "mountain garden of Cibodas". Its founder, Johannes Elias Teijsmann, curator of the botanic garden at Bogor, saw it as an upland site in which to acclimatise foreign species of high economic value, cinchona first among them. Long a branch of the Bogor garden, Cibodas became an autonomous plant-conservation unit in 2003 under the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), whose role has since passed to the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN). Since 2020 the garden has also worked in partnership with a private company, PT Mitra Natura Raya.

The greenhouses belong to this recent period. The Nepenthes House was inaugurated on 11 April 2014, the garden's 162nd anniversary, to conserve outside their natural habitat carnivorous plants to which the garden attaches very high conservation value. The conservatory, closed to visitors ever since it was built, was shown to the public for the first time, on a trial basis, from May to July 2022, during the Eid and school holidays; its interior layout grew out of a staff initiative known as the "Saturday Project".

The garden rises from 1,300 to 1,425 m above sea level at the foot of the Gede and Pangrango volcanoes, and its natural climate is cool. The conservatory, covering about 942 m², is designed precisely to recreate tropical conditions there; a 2-metre fountain helps to regulate the temperature. The interior is laid out as a themed garden, with separate sections for cacti and succulents, bromeliads, agaves, rhododendrons, ferns, Ophiopogon and bougainvilleas, together with interpretive panels and spots arranged for photography.

The Nepenthes House is devoted to the display and ex situ conservation of carnivorous plants; the sources consulted give neither its dimensions nor its materials. The garden also has collection greenhouses in which its cacti, succulents and orchids are grown.

The Nepenthes House brings together 80 species of these pitcher plants, including highland species found in Indonesia, along with seven other genera of carnivorous plants: Cephalotus, Sarracenia, Dionaea (the Venus flytrap), Utricularia, Pinguicula, Drosera and Heliamphora.

In the conservatory, some 27 species of tropical cacti and succulents grow alongside bromeliads, agaves, rhododendrons, ferns, Ophiopogon and bougainvilleas. Across the garden's greenhouses, the collections number 98 species of cacti, 262 of orchids and 71 of succulents. The garden also records 134 species of mosses, 101 species of ferns and 164 medicinal plants.

The garden lies in Cipanas, in the Cianjur regency of West Java, on a site of about 85 hectares at the foot of Mounts Gede and Pangrango. The greenhouses form part of a circuit that also includes a Japanese cherry garden, whose five varieties flower twice a year, a rhododendron garden, a moss garden, a liana garden and a medicinal plant garden. Two waterfalls can be reached from the garden: Ciismun, about 25 m high, and Cibogo, 15 to 18 m. Because the conservatory was first opened during holiday periods, it is worth checking its access before a visit.