Mont Fleuri has a clear botanical focus, reflected in two distinct institutions: the National Botanical Garden combines plant diversity with the history of a former agricultural research station; the Seychelles National Herbarium houses plant specimens from the Seychelles. The garden also offers the opportunity to feed giant tortoises. When planning your trip, you can distinguish between the garden’s collection, its history and the country’s flora. If you enjoy exploring both nature and history while travelling, you’ll find several different points of interest here.
Botanical Garden: Species and Origins
The National Botanical Garden is home to more than 280 plant species, including endemic and ornamental plants. The terms refer to different criteria: “endemic” describes a species’ natural distribution within a specific area, while ornamental plants are classified according to their horticultural function. The plants in the Thai Garden come from Thailand and Southeast Asia. This origin gives it a distinct geographical character within the grounds. If you’re interested in where plants come from, you can consider this alongside the categories used for the rest of the garden’s collection. This allows you to view species diversity, classification and origin as distinct botanical perspectives.
Visitors can feed giant tortoises in the garden. Educational visits are also offered for school students, introducing them to the basics of botany and helping them develop an appreciation for nature. The two activities appeal to different interests: feeding the tortoises is a hands-on visitor activity, while the educational visits are specifically designed for school learning.
From Research Station to Public Park
The National Botanical Garden began in 1901 as an agricultural research station. By the middle of the 20th century, it had become a public park. This timeline shows how the site changed: its history is first associated with agricultural research and later with its role as a public park. For travellers interested in how gardens came into being, this transformation is a distinct aspect of the area’s history.
The Seychelles National Herbarium
The Seychelles National Herbarium is located in Bel Etang, Mont Fleuri. It houses plant specimens from the Seychelles, including representatives of a large part of the country’s flora that is internationally significant. The collection contains around 6,000 specimens of flowering plants and ferns; its size may change over time. The figure should therefore be understood as an approximate scale, not a fixed total.
The figures for the garden and the herbarium answer different questions: more than 280 refers to plant species in the garden, while around 6,000 refers to individual specimens in the herbarium. Species and specimens are different units of measurement and cannot be directly compared. This lets you understand the garden’s plant collection and the scale of the herbarium collection as two distinct perspectives on the plant life of the Seychelles.
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