The Endlicher-Fenzl-Kerner path

Systematics is a sub-discipline of botany with a long tradition at the University of Vienna. Originally, three directors of the Botanical Garden were instrumental in promoting systematic research and its presentation in the garden: Stefan Endlicher (1839-1849), Eduard Fenzl (1849-1880) and Anton Kerner von Marilaun (1878-1890).

Endlicher had taken over a strictly formal Baroque garden from his predecessor Joseph Franz von Jacquin and wanted to redesign it both in terms of content and style according to the ideas of a ’natural system’ of plant relationships. The project ultimately took several decades and was realised by his successor Eduard Fenzl in the form of English landscape gardens. The various groups of related species were displayed within large organic beds. Following the gentle slope of the terrain, it began at the bottom with ’lower’ developed families, followed by the ’higher’ developed families further up. Even before the publication of Darwin's theory of evolution, this arrangement of plants according to their ’degree of development’ revealed the first vague ideas of natural evolution in the plant kingdom.

Eleven display boards along the Endlicher-Fenzl-Kerner path bring the history of the Botanical Garden and the history of science to life. Scientific concepts of botanical systematics from centuries past are juxtaposed with modern concepts. The path starts in the northern, lower section of the Systematic Group between groups 2 and 3 and ends between groups 17 and 18.