Carpoteca

The Botanical Garden of Palermo houses a fruit collection, an extraordinary collection of about fifty sealed glass jarscontaining fruits, mainly of the Citrus genus, preserved in an aqueous solution with formaldehyde.

This collection, gathered both in the Garden and during scientific expeditions to the former Italian colonies in the 20th century, offers a unique insight into the diversity of species. Among the most notable fruits, you can admire the enormous pomelo (Citrus maxima) and the grapefruit (Citrus paradisi), a natural hybrid between the pomelo and the orange.

The fruit collection is currently on display in the display cases in the central hall of the Gymnasium and in the display cases in the exhibition hall of the Garden's ticket office.

The collection has recently been enriched with a new section that includes fruits from centuries-old Citrus trees from the Kolymbethra Garden, one of the most significant archaeological sites from a naturalistic and landscape point of view, located in the heart of the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento.

For this new collection, the Botanical Garden is experimenting xperimenting with the use of natural conservation solutions as alternatives to formaldehyde, a compound classified as carcinogenic and therefore not recommended.