Lund’s International Citizen’s Hub offered a tour of the Botanical Gardens today. I met a nice couple from the UK and a woman from a town near Davenport, Iowa!

We learned about the history and creation of the gardens, beginning in the 1690s through various expansions which occurred mainly from 1850 to the early 1900s, when it first opened to the public.

We had a botany lesson on Dahlias (fun fact – they’re found in every color except blue, in spite of a contest with a large reward for growing a true blue hybrid) They were introduced as a potential food source, and they are edible but were soon cultivated only for the flowers.

And we learned a bit about Carl Linnaeus, who studied in Lund in 1727. The garden features an apple tree which he gave to Lund from his personal garden.

The mistletoe is deliberately grown on the branches to provide winter interest (and for good luck). This mistletoe, under the Linné Apple canopy, has been growing for around 25 years.