Medicinal Plants and Gardens: Matthaei Botanical Gardens & Nichols Arboretum

This exhibition celebrates the upcoming 2015 opening of the new Medicinal Garden at the University of Michigan’s Matthaei Botanical Gardens. The earliest botanical garden at the University was a pharmaceutical garden established in 1897 just off the Diag, at the heart of Central Campus. The new garden, developed in partnership with the College of Pharmacy and Medical School faculty, will continue that legacy, aiming to explore the botanical origins of historical and current medicines, and to promote a better understanding of the profound relationship between plants and human health.

Preceding the garden’s opening, this exhibition at UMMA will feature rarely seen archival plant specimens, deposited by pharmaceutical companies at the University Herbarium, along with newer herbarium specimens that reveal the captivating forms of these medicinal plants. These dried and pressed plant specimens will be accompanied by the presentation of the few remaining historic images of the original pharmaceutical garden, as well as a drawing of the layout of the new garden at Matthaei, which is uniquely organized according to the systems of the human body that these medicinal plants are used to treat