Aquatic House and Orchid Collection

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The Aquatic House displays plants from Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s orchid collection as well as a variety of tropical and subtropical aquatic and wet-environment plants from around the world.

At the entry of the Aquatic House is a paludarium whose terrestrial components feature a variety of plants including ferns, mosses, aroids, and orchids, while waterfalls cascade into a six-foot-deep pool that displays both submerged and emergent aquatic plants. A second, larger pool features a variety of aquatic plants and trees as well as a naturalistic bog display. These wet-environment plantings highlight a range of physical adaptations plants have made to live in, on, and near water.

A diverse sampling of the Garden’s collection of several thousand orchids and other epiphytic plants is permanently on display in the Aquatic House—particularly warmer-growing orchids in the Vanda Alliance and Bulbophyllum, Coryanthes, and Sobralia genera. Many more are cultivated in the horticulture greenhouses, and as different specimens come into bloom, they are rotated into the Aquatic House for display. One of the more notable species in the collection, on permanent display in the Aquatic House, is the Garden’s 300-pound tiger orchid specimen (Grammatophyllum speciosum).

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