United States Botanic Garden USBG

Congress set aside land on the National Mall for a botanic garden in 1820 at the urging of the Columbian Institute, a Washington learned society. The garden took on new life in the 1840s when it received living plants collected by the Wilkes Expedition, a naval exploring voyage around the Pacific, and some descendants of those plants are still in its collection. It is one of the oldest continually operating botanic gardens in the United States.

Today the garden includes the Lord and Burnham glass conservatory, opened in 1933 and renovated in the early 2000s, the outdoor National Garden opened in 2006, and Bartholdi Park, home to the cast-iron fountain by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, the sculptor of the Statue of Liberty. Its collection of tens of thousands of plants includes orchids, medicinal plants, desert and tropical species, and rare and endangered plants.

The garden is part of the legislative branch. It is administered by the Architect of the Capitol under the oversight of the Joint Committee on the Library, which makes it an unusual example of Congress running a public museum directly. Admission is free, and it runs education programs and conservation partnerships with other gardens.