Romeo and Julia pyramids (University of Oulu Botanical Garden)

The University of Oulu Botanical Garden was founded in 1960. Its first home was the Hupisaaret islands park close to the city centre. In the summer of 1983 it moved to Linnanmaa, next to the university's new campus, on land between the university buildings and Lake Kuivasjärvi, some seven kilometres north of the centre. The two pyramid greenhouses, named Romeo and Julia, have since become the emblem of the garden.

The garden now belongs to the university's biodiversity unit, and the botanical and zoological museums share its premises. Its collections are kept above all for teaching and research, but they are open to the public. The garden records the origin of every plant, so that each specimen can be traced back to its source, and it distributes seed of northern Finnish origin to other botanic gardens around the world. The university describes it as one of the northernmost scientific gardens in the world.

Both glasshouses take the form of glazed pyramids, which act as landmarks for the garden and for the Linnanmaa campus. Romeo, the taller of the pair, rises to 16 metres; its neighbour Julia reaches 14 metres. These tall volumes make it possible to grow large plants under glass, from bananas and lianas to trees of temperate regions.

Each pyramid has its own climate. Romeo holds the tropical and subtropical vegetation, with pools in which rice and papyrus grow. Julia combines three settings: a Mediterranean zone, a desert zone given over to cacti and succulents, and a temperate zone planted with trees such as sequoia and magnolia. Labels give each plant's scientific name, main natural range and Finnish name, and information boards add further detail.

About 1,200 exotic taxa are displayed in the two pyramids, out of more than 4,000 plant species in the garden as a whole. Romeo gathers tropical fruits, orchids, carnivorous plants, lianas and aquatic plants, along with food and fodder plants both familiar and unfamiliar: banana, cacao, coffee, tea, gardenia and camellia grow side by side. The garden also points out a few curiosities, among them what it calls the world's rarest tree, the smallest flowering plant and the largest seed in the world.

Julia shows Mediterranean flora on one side, with olive, grapevine, geraniums, citrus trees, cedars and an araucaria, then the agaves, aloes and cacti of the desert zone, and finally temperate trees such as sequoia, magnolia and mulberry. Every plant is documented with its provenance, and the collections serve the university's teaching and research.

The garden occupies part of the Linnanmaa campus, between the university and Lake Kuivasjärvi, about seven kilometres north of central Oulu. The outdoor garden is free to enter, and inside the pyramids visitors wander at will rather than following a set route. An hour is enough for the two greenhouses; allow more for the outdoor garden, with its useful and medicinal plants, native flora, mountain plants and an arboretum arranged by biogeographical region, best explored in summer. The university's botanical and zoological museums share the same premises.