Greenhouses of the South China National Botanical Garden

The greenhouses belong to one of China's oldest botanical institutions. The garden traces its origins to 1929, when the botanist Chen Huanyong (Woon-Young Chun) founded the Institute of Agriculture and Forestry at Sun Yat-sen University, first located in Guangzhou's Dongshan district. The institution came under the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1954, became the South China Institute of Botany, and in 2003 took the name South China Botanical Garden. In 2022 the State Council approved the creation of the South China National Botanical Garden on this foundation, one of the country's first two national botanical gardens alongside Beijing's.

The greenhouse complex, titled World Plant Wonders, was conceived as the public showcase of this research institution. The garden's own description, published in 2010, calls it the largest landscaped greenhouse complex in Asia and possibly the world, and a landmark of Guangzhou. It combines ex situ conservation, scientific research and educational tourism.

The complex covers 75,000 m² and comprises five main structures: the tropical rainforest house, a plant aquarium, the house of curious plants, the desert house and the alpine and polar house. The glasshouses are set among outdoor savanna-style landscapes.

The rainforest house, the centrepiece, rises to 27.4 metres and covers 7,987 m². Its route is divided into seven zones: rainforest landscape, aquatic plants, curious plants, rainforest culture, plant communities, a central waterfall and a river-valley rainforest. The desert house (689 m², 10.52 metres high) continues outdoors into roughly 2,000 m² of open-air desert landscape, where sand, stone, artificial cliffs and weathered strata create an ochre palette. The alpine and polar house (853 m², also 10.52 metres high) uses refrigerated display cases and artificial snow scenes. The house of curious plants, about 1,531 m², is organised around walls of volcanic rock and display cases.

The complex holds about 3,500 species. The rainforest house alone shows more than a thousand, including Parashorea chinensis, a towering tree of southern China's forests, the highly toxic Antiaris toxicaria, the rain tree (Samanea saman) and the giant Victoria water lily; climbers, epiphytes, parasites and strangler figs illustrate the relationships between species.

The desert house gathers some 300 species of cacti and succulents along a circuit that passes through the deserts of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Australia in turn. The alpine and polar house has more than 200 species from subalpine, alpine and polar habitats and doubles as a research platform for southern China's mountain plants and threatened endemic species. The house of curious plants highlights unusual forms and colours, such as the torch ginger (Etlingera elatior).

The greenhouse complex is one of the main visitor areas of the garden, in Guangzhou's Tianhe District. Allow half a day to see the five houses and their surroundings while leaving time for the neighbouring gardens.

The garden lists several outdoor collections nearby that extend a visit: the palm garden, the relict plants area, the cycad garden, the orchid garden, the medicinal plant garden and the ferns and shade plants area, as well as the Longdong Qilin landscape. Guangzhou's subtropical climate makes the complex worth visiting in any season.