Stop at Linnean House busts / Photo of original landscape

Although Henry Shaw owned expansive property, he planned the Missouri Botanical Garden for a relatively narrow strip of land stretching north from his country home. A fruticetum, or collection of shrubs, grew in what is the present-day parking lot. Just south of this area was the Main Conservatory, built in 1868 to house exotic plants. Shaw completed this small brick greenhouse in 1882. He wanted it to complement the original main conservatory pictured on the sign. He named it the Linnean House to honor Carl Linnaeus, the botanist who created our standard scientific system of naming plants and animals.

The Linnean House originally housed palms, citrus trees, and other plants that could not withstand St. Louis winters. The original plants were all in pots; there were no permanent plantings. After World War I, the house was renovated: the roof was converted to all glass, and many loads of soil were brought in to create landscape beds. Rare conifers, rhododendrons, azaleas and heaths were planted, along with a handful of camellias. A central water feature was added and fashioned to look like a natural spring along the Meramec River. In the late 1930s, the conservatory was converted to house mainly camellias, which still grow here year-round. The Linnean House remains the oldest continually operating greenhouse west of the Mississippi River.