Conservatoire Botanique National

Bailleul, Nord, France, France

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The Conservatoire botanique national de Bailleul is a state-authorized scientific organization located at the Hameau de Haendries in Bailleul, Nord, France, dedicated to studying, preserving, and promoting the wild flora, fungi, and natural vegetation of the Hauts-de-France region.

Established in 1970 as the Centre Régional de Phytosociologie and officially designated as a national botanical conservatory in 1991, it operates across 25 hectares and is one of only 12 national botanical conservatories in France.

The institution carries out five main missions: inventoring natural plant heritage to improve scientific knowledge, conserving rare and endangered species, managing and sharing over 6 million field-collected data points, providing environmental education and training for all audiences, and offering scientific expertise and advice to the government and public institutions. 

Its facilities include a seed bank containing approximately 44 million seeds representing 500 species, a herbarium with 50,000 specimens, and a library with 50,000 books and periodicals, plus a digital database called Digitale2 with 5 million cataloged and mapped plant data points. The conservatory is particularly known for its two labelled "Jardins remarquables" gardens: the Jardin des Plantes Sauvages (1 hectare) housing over 850 local endangered plant species reconstituted in their natural habitats, and the medicinal garden containing more than 350 medicinal plants from across Europe.