Biodiversity is not only a research topic at the university, in the Botanic Garden you can discover plants from all over the world. On the campus, numerous green corners invite you to relax and discover.

The Botanic Garden and the Botanical Museum are central facilities of Freie Universität Berlin. The Botanic Garden is one of the world’s largest because of the breadth and diversity of its flora, encompassing about 20,000 plant species. Research and development projects at the Botanic Garden support national and international biodiversity programs as well as Freie Universität Berlin’s research and teaching.

The Botanic Garden and the Botanical Museum have an extensive collection of live plants in both greenhouses and outdoors, an herbarium of about four million plant specimens, and a botanical library with about 350,000 titles. Regular exhibitions show the natural and cultural history of plants. The Botanical Museum is the only one of its kind in Central Europe.

Freie Universität is located in the green district of Dahlem. Its buildings are set in several vast green areas in Berlin’s Steglitz-Zehlendorf district and on its own campus. About three-fourths of its campus is not built on and is largely usable green space. Numerous green roofs also improve the local microclimate and serve as a habitat for insects and birds. The roof greening also improves several building characteristics such as insulation and protection from heat. Damage to the building stock, such as through root growth, is unlikely given the state of the technology. The most important green roofs include those of the main building Rostlaube, the Library for Educational Science, Technical Methodology, and Psychology as well as the parking deck and House C on the Lankwitz campus. Some roofs even contain beehives, which offer additional ecological benefits.