Greenhouse of the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv Botanical Garden (Оранжерея Ботанічного саду Львівського університету)

The botanical garden of Ivan Franko National University in Lviv, founded in 1852, describes itself as one of the oldest in Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Its collection of tropical and subtropical plants also dates back to the 1850s: it began in the glasshouses of the historic site at 4 Kyryla i Mefodiya Street, whose nineteenth-century buildings are still in use.

Today the garden occupies two sites, about 2 hectares on Kyryla i Mefodiya Street and 16.5 hectares on Cheremshyny Street, 18.5 hectares in all. It was on the second site that the orangery complex was completed in 1974, and it now houses most of the displays of the department of tropical and subtropical plants. Several plants in the collection survived the Second World War and are between one hundred and one hundred and fifty years old.

In 2002 the tropical and subtropical collection was entered in Ukraine's national register of scientific objects of national heritage; the garden as a whole has been listed since 2009. Public access to the orangeries has been interrupted in recent years: in spring 2026 the garden announced that they would reopen to visitors from 3 May.

The Cheremshyny Street complex is a 1970s university building. The garden's heritage passport gives the height of the main orangery as 24 metres, room enough for tall palms and tropical trees. The department's page credits the complex with 1,250 m², although another page of the garden's website applies that figure to the two sites combined. It stands in contrast to the nineteenth-century glasshouses preserved on Kyryla i Mefodiya Street, which hold the rest of the collection.

The tropical and subtropical collection numbers 1,663 taxa, including 1,306 species and 324 infraspecific taxa, in 462 genera and 130 families. The largest groups are cacti (206 taxa), Crassulaceae (167), Asphodelaceae (120), aroids (117) and bromeliads (115); there are also 70 orchid taxa, ferns, conifers and about a dozen cycads. Separate curators look after the orchids, succulents, palms, aroids, begonias and bromeliads.

The elders of the collection, between one hundred and one hundred and fifty years old, have survived since before the war: Agathis brownii, Araucaria bidwillii, Ceratozamia mexicana, Chrysophyllum imperiale, Cycas circinalis, Dioon edule and a Canary Island date palm (Phoenix canariensis).

The Cheremshyny Street site combines the orangeries with a 16.5-hectare park, which takes one to two hours to explore. The garden holds annual open days and, in summer and early autumn, themed exhibitions of succulents, cacti, gladioli and dahlias. Guided tours are available by arrangement, particularly for students and school groups. Because access to the orangeries has been suspended more than once, it is wise to check the garden's announcements before going; a 3D virtual tour is also available online.