Living Collections

The Fort Worth Botanic Garden has one of the oldest and best-established collections of living plants in any public space in Texas.  From champion trees like the jujube (Chinese date, Zizyphus jujuba) and towering ancient pecans to a wide array of fascinating cultivated and native plants, visitors can enjoy 3,500 taxa (species, variants, and cultivars) of locally adapted plants.  Almost 100 species native to North Texas are on display in the Tinsley Rock Springs Garden alone.  The Pollinator Pathway offers a wide range of examples home gardeners can introduce to support native butterfly, bee, and hummingbird populations.  And those are just what you’ll find in two of 23 specialty gardens.

Among the many plant families in the collection, displays include especially large numbers of representatives from the Roseaceae (rose), Asteraceae (aster or sunflower), Lamiaceae (mint), and Fagaceae (oak) families.  Perhaps the most significant holdings in the garden’s living collections are the over 1,000 members of the Begoniaceae.  The Fort Worth Botanic Garden holds the largest collection of begonias in the US, including hundreds of species and rare cultivated varieties.  It’s one of the largest reserves of genetic material for that family in the world.

FWBG is also a US Plant Recovery Center for the international CITES program and has provided a home to many plant materials seized by the USDA for attempted trade in endangered species over almost 20 years.