Tropical Plant Palace, Nanjing Zhongshan Botanical Garden (南京中山植物园热带植物宫)

Nanjing's Zhongshan Botanical Garden was founded in 1929 on the slopes of Zijin Mountain, east of the city, as the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Botanical Garden (中山先生纪念植物园); it was China's first national botanical garden. Renamed in 1954 as the Zhongshan Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, it is now run by the Institute of Botany of Jiangsu Province and the Academy, and covers 186 hectares.

From 1999 the garden undertook a large extension around Qianhu Lake: the South Garden (南园), organised into eleven sections and home to more than 3,000 living species. The Tropical Plant Palace (热带植物宫) is one of these sections. The whole extension opened to the public on National Day in October 2007.

The garden has continued to grow since then: in 2024 a 3,300 m² aquatic plant garden was added. Its herbarium, holding some 700,000 specimens, reflects the institution's scientific role.

The Tropical Plant Palace stands on the north-west side of Qianhu Lake, at the foot of Zijin Mountain. Its design rests on a simple image: three translucent green leaves that seem to rise out of the lake. Each glass leaf forms a separate volume and houses one of the three display zones: the tropical rainforest, useful tropical plants (fruit, flowers and economic plants) and arid and semi-arid lands.

Together they provide nearly 10,000 m² of display space. The building was erected as part of the extension begun in 1999 and opened in 2007, which gave the garden eleven new landscape sections around Qianhu Lake.

The three zones hold more than 2,000 species, presented around two themes: 'wonders of the plant world' and the relationship between plants and people. The tropical rainforest zone stages characteristic phenomena such as a tree being strangled by a fig, a single tree forming a whole forest through its aerial roots, and the 'hanging gardens' of epiphytes.

The zone of useful tropical plants gathers fruit trees, economic plants and tropical flowers. The arid and semi-arid zone shows succulents, among them an Australian bottle tree.

The greenhouse lies in the South Garden of the Zhongshan Botanical Garden, beside Qianhu Lake on the flank of Zijin Mountain, east of Nanjing. Allow an hour for the three leaves, then half a day for the South Garden's other sections: rose garden, medicinal plant garden, conifer garden, bonsai garden, garden for blind visitors and nature education trail.

Spring and autumn suit a combined visit with the older North Garden and the other historic sites of Zijin Mountain, including the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, after whom the garden is named.