In a few years Clelia Durazzo collected a large number of plants, mainly ornamental species, as well as scientific texts and a herbarium rich with over 5000 samples. The 19th-century academic world, both national and international, rightly recognized her great merit for her scientific activity. The two 19th-century greenhouses, built by her and later renovated by her grandson Ignazio Alessandro Pallavicini, represent the finest Genoese testimony of that botanical culture which characterized the scientific environments of Genoa at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries and still today define the garden architecturally.
In 1928, the botanical garden, along with the palace and the romantic park, was donated to the Municipality of Genoa and was improperly used for many years. At the end of the 1970s, it was revalued and the botanical collections grew significantly. With the interventions of 2002-2004, the botanical garden was finally restored and today it displays collections of various compositions, some arranged in particular scenes such as the desert, tropical forests, peat bogs, and swamps. In its magnificent monumental greenhouses, ferns, palms, and tropical plants of economic interest such as cocoa, cola, cinnamon, banana, cassava, etc., are cultivated. Outdoors, the educational collections provide visitors with the opportunity to learn more about certain aspects related to plant biology, such as reproduction, leaf colors, scents, and poisons.
Collections of roses, camellias, bamboo, and Mediterranean plants offer the possibility to get to know these groups of vegetation more closely. In the new greenhouse dedicated to giant water lilies, it is possible to admire the Victoria cruziana.
