São Paulo Botanical Garden

São Paulo, Brazil, Brazil

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The São Paulo Botanical Garden (Jardim Botânico de São Paulo) is one of the city's best parks for relaxing, spanning 164.45 hectares (406 acres) in the Fontes do Ipiranga State Park at the Água Funda district in São Paulo's South zone, next to the São Paulo Zoo.

Founded in its current location in 1928 by eminent botanist Frederico Carlos Hoehne—who had participated in the Roosevelt-Rondon scientific expedition to survey the Amazon basin—and officially inaugurated in 1938, the garden houses the state's Botanical Institute (Instituto de Botânica) which Hoehne directed from 1942.

The park conserves about 146 hectares of predominantly Atlantic rainforest (Mata Atlântica), one of Brazil's last remaining examples of this western coastal environment, plus 85 acres of formal gardens and an arboretum with approximately 380 species of native trees from São Paulo and Brazil. 

Visitors can explore large and small ponds with flowering waterlilies including the famous Giant water lily of the Amazon, follow a stream to its jungle source, visit two large glass houses showcasing flora from the Cerrado and Atlantic forest biomes, an orchidarium with colorful orchids, and a small botanical museum chronicling the garden's history.