Batumi Botanical Garden

Why go

The garden climbs from the shore to about 220 metres between the Chakvistskali estuary and the Green Cape, on ground once covered by Colchic forest. Its collection is organised by world region, with East Asian, Himalayan, Australian, New Zealand, North American, Mexican, South American, Mediterranean and Transcaucasian humid-subtropics sections, and the official count is up to 1,800 taxonomic units. Plant introduction on this coast began in the 1880s: the French traveller d'Alfonse laid out what is now the Lower Park, which starts at the main Green Cape entrance and keeps his house, and in 1892 the geographer Tatarinov founded the acclimatisation garden that is now the Upper Park. The garden itself was founded under the botanist Andrei Krasnov and opened on 3 November 1912, and it has been a member of Botanic Gardens Conservation International since 1998. Paths cover steep slopes over long distances, so allow for a hilly walk.