Chalermphrakiat Glasshouses and Tropical Insect Conservation Center, TISTR Lamtakong Research Station (สถานีวิจัยลำตะคอง วว.)

The Lamtakong Research Station was founded on 14 December 1998 by the Thailand Institute of Scientific and Technological Research (TISTR, วว.) as a ground for agricultural research and a place to pass technology on to communities. Thailand's National Science Museum states that the two Chalermphrakiat buildings (อาคารเฉลิมพระเกียรติ), called greenhouses no. 1 and no. 2 (เรือนกระจก), were built to mark the 60th birthday of Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn. They were meant as learning sites for botany, entomology, plant genetic conservation and the links between insects, agriculture and the environment.

A press article of 2 December 2018 presents the complex as a new Thai learning centre for agriculture and botany and announces free admission from December 2018 to 31 January 2019. Since then the greenhouses have turned up regularly in guides and the press: a National Science Museum page from 2022, a travel article from August 2022 and a magazine feature from October 2023 all describe them. At the end of December 2025 the station counted them among its free-entry attractions, alongside a rest stop for New Year travellers and an exhibition on Queen Sirikit, with fields of tulips and lilies as photo settings.

The Thai word used, เรือนกระจก, means a greenhouse (literally a “glass house”). Photographs published by the station show volumes with exposed ribbed vaults whose faces are fitted with a chequerboard of light panels; the interior view in a 2023 magazine shows ferns planted in the ground in beds edged with pink stone, around a pale pillar.

The National Science Museum describes two greenhouses. The first arranges its plants in six zones. The second has two parts: a trail on plant evolution and the Tropical Insect Conservation Center. Visitors can walk through the whole building, botanical and entomological parts alike.

According to the National Science Museum, the first greenhouse has six zones: rare trees, epiphytes and orchids, temperate, alpine and mountain trees, aquatic plants, desert and succulent plants, and primitive plants. The second shows plant evolution following modern classification, grouped by use: rare and endemic plants, medicinal plants and spices, beverage plants, and plants with royal names. The 2023 magazine places this trail in the first greenhouse: ferns and gymnosperms of the Carboniferous, cacao, robusta coffee, เฉาก๊วย (Platostoma palustre), and Zingiber sirindhorniae, which flowers only once a year, from June to August.

In the insect centre, the 2018 press lists pollinators, carnivorous plants, camouflage specialists, rare Thai beetles, breeding of rare species and wetland habitats; the 2023 magazine mentions butterflies in flight, a pink orchid mantis, stick insects and leaf insects.

The station lies beside Mittraphap Road at Pak Chong, near Khao Yai National Park and Lamtakong Dam. The two greenhouses and the insect centre are the core of the visit; the 2023 magazine suggests pairing them with the surroundings: Lamtakong Dam, the EGAT learning centre, the Khao Yai Thiang wind turbines and the Plant Genetic Conservation Centre (อพ.สธ.) at Khlong Phai.

Opening days are uncertain: a 2022 travel article gives opening from Tuesday to Thursday and at weekends, with closures on Monday, on Friday and on the last weekend of the month. It is wise to check the station's Facebook page before travelling.