Jardin botanique Val Rahmeh-Menton

Menton, France, France

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The Jardin botanique Val Rahmeh-Menton (also called Jardin botanique exotique de Menton or Jardin botanique exotique du Val Rahmeh) is an 11,000-square-meter (1.5-hectare) exotic botanical garden located off Avenue Saint-Jacques in Menton, Alpes-Maritimes, on the French Côte d'Azur.

The garden can be traced back to 1875 when the De Monléon family built the original property, and in 1905 Lord Percy Radcliffe, former governor of Malta, acquired it with his wife Rahmeh (meaning "tranquillity" in Arabic-Persian), after whom the estate is named, adding adjacent farmland and creating a beautiful palm avenue to the entrance.

In 1957, wealthy English eccentric Miss Maybud Campbell acquired the property, expanded the garden by adding lower grounds with a pond containing giant lotus and water lilies, and brought superb ornamental plants to the estate. She donated the property to France in 1966, and it opened to the public in 1967 as a research center for Mediterranean flora managed by the National Museum of Natural History (Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle).

Today the garden contains approximately 1,700 to 1,800 plant taxa, including tropical and subtropical species from Greece, Africa, the Canary Islands, China, Mexico, New Caledonia, and New Zealand, as well as Mediterranean plants, all growing in a unique subtropical microclimate between mountains and sea with high humidity where temperatures rarely fall below 5°C (41°F) in winter.