Arboretum du Chemin de la Découverte

Melle, France, France

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The Arboretum du Chemin de la Découverte is a unique 6-to-7-kilometer arboretum located in Melle, in the Deux-Sèvres department of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in western France.

Established in 1987 along a disused railway track that was converted into a pedestrian path, it is France's only example of transforming an abandoned railway into a tree garden, originally beginning in 1979 when the city purchased the first abandoned private railway section and later acquired state railway sections in 1981.

The arboretum contains approximately 1,400 to 1,800 species and 1,000+ taxa of trees and shrubs from five continents, forming an extraordinary collection of deciduous trees. It is a prestigious French reference for botany, certified by the Conservatoire des Collections Végétales Spécialisées (CCVS), with nine official collections including birches, hornbeams, ashes, bowtrees, chestnuts, micocouliers, willows, sorbiers, and lime trees, plus additional impressive collections of maples, unusual-leaf oaks, beeches, alders, and nearly 200 rose varieties.