The Botanic Garden of the University of Tuscia is an institution created to support teaching, research, educational and recreational facilities, is an ideal outdoor laboratory and place of culture and preservation, promotes biosystematic studies and experiments on the acclimation ability of different plant species, in collaboration with the local, national and international scientific community.
In addition to the ex situ conservation of plant species obtained through the care of the collections, and the sampling, storage and exchange of seeds, it operates for the habitat preservation, by means of plant diversity in the natural environment directly, in collaboration with the Museum Herbarium and the Tuscia Germoplasm Bank, using in situ conservation techniques.
The Botanical Garden, inaugurated in 1991, is located near a sulphurous thermal spring in the natural area of the Bullicame Park (9 hectares). It covers an area of approximately 6 hectares, gently sloping, up to a travertine platform which stops abruptly forming two almost vertical walls.
The area is rich in Etruscan and Roman archaeological remains and it is believed that there was located Fano Voltumna, a place sacred to the Etruscans; in later times, the area had important Roman thermal baths. The importance and the area's reputation is evidenced by several quotations in the Cantos of Dante's Inferno. Even during the Medieval period and until the end of the nineteenth century, the area overlaid great importance for the economy of the City of Viterbo, because destined to maceration of hemp and flax in the reservoirs connected to the source of hot sulphurous water through a system of channels.
http://www.ortobotanico.unitus.it
