On cloudy and cold days you can at least for a moment visit the Poznan Palm house in the Wilson's Park, barely a few hundred meters form the Main Railway Station. It is the only place in Poznan where throughout the year the temperature is kept over 20 degrees Celsius.

This year the Poznan Palm house is celebrating its 100th birthday! It was built in one of the most beautiful parks in Poznan, named after the former U.S. President and a great supporter of independent Poland, Theodor Wilson.

At the beginning, the palm house was small, just over 500 square meters. In three small rooms tropical plants and collection of cacti were gathered. In the early 20's of the last century the first in Poland aquarium department and a small pool for aquatic pants was created. In subsequent years the building was gradually expanded. Unfortunately, most of the buildings, and virtually the entire collection of plants were destroyed at the beginning of 1945, during the battle for liberation of the city.

After the Second World War, the palm house was gradually rebuilt. Ultimately, the restoration was completed only a dozen or so years ago. Previously, due to modernization, the palm house was closed.

Contemporary palm house consists of 10 pavilions covering a total area of over 45,000 square meters. In each pavilion a vegetation from a different climate zone is presented. This enables the visitors to enjoy the subtropical, tropical, and aquatic plants, species native to the temperate climate, succulent plants from America, and savannah plants.

Among the tens of thousands of different species of plants a few deserve special attention. In the central pavilion, you can enjoy, inter alia, the palm Sabal minor, one of the few specimens that survived the critical for the building year 1945. In the adjacent pavilion No.2 one can admire the constantly bearing fruit citrus grove. In the tropical pavilion you can see the formation of the so called epiphytes, i.e. the group of plants, which grow over other, mostly arborescent plants, but are not parasites. They include orchids, ferns, pineapple-like plants and even cacti. In the aquatic plants room the central place is occupied by the pool for growing of royal victory (Victoria regia) the floating, covered with sharp spikes on the underside leaves of which grow up to 2 meters in diameter. Their unusual construction and buoyancy makes it easy for them to hold the weight of a small child.

While visiting the Poznan Palm house it is worth to look into the room of aquariums. The pavilion consists of 37 different water tanks, where over 170 species of fish are presented.

On 7th of May the celebration of the 100th birthday of the Palm house has bugun. It will last till October. A detailed schedule of the events will appear on the website www.city.poznan.pl

Photos: Palm house Poznan