Tilden Regional Parks Botanic Garden Visitor Center

The Regional Parks Botanic Garden was founded on January 1, 1940. Situated in Tilden Regional Park's beautiful Wildcat Canyon in the heart of the north Berkeley Hills, the garden is devoted to the collection, growth, display, and preservation of the native plants of California. The state is a vast region of many floral areas, such as seacoast bluffs and coastal mountains, interior valleys, arid foothills, alpine zones, and two kinds of desert. California embraces nearly 160,000 square miles - imagine 160,000 square miles of California set in a garden that can be walked in a day.

The public is welcome in this garden, which is open between the hours of 8:30am and 5pm from October 1 to May 31, and 8:30am and 5:30pm from June 1 to September 30. The garden is closed New Year's Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. All specimens are landscaped into a delightful setting, offering many enjoyable days of exploration, relaxation, and contemplation. To the student, the Botanic Garden offers the premier Northern California venue in which to study the state's native plants without wandering far from home or dorm. Indoors, in the Visitor Center, lectures and slide shows are scheduled on most Saturdays from November through February, and an exhibit pertaining to the native flora is usually to be found in the auditorium.

Notable among the many specimens that have been brought in from all corners of the state are representatives of nearly all the state's conifers and oaks, and probably the most complete collections of California manzanitas to be found anywhere. There are also extensive collections of California native bunchgrasses, bulbs, aquatic plants, and representatives of about 300 taxa that are classified in the California Native Plant Society's landmark study, "Inventory of Rare and Endangered Vascular Plants of California."