Welcome to the Plant Environmental Center

The Plant Environment Center, consisting of research greenhouses, a classroom laboratory and Conservatory, is located at 91 Waterman Street. We provide an educational research facility which is primarily available to those in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, a part of the Division of Biology and Medicine. The facility is comprised of 3 research greenhouses approximately 5,000 sq.ft. used for research experiments and a teaching plant collection for biological science classes. There is also a Conservatory of approximately 2000 sq.ft. The collection includes many plant families, including a diverse collection of Cycads, Orchids, Aroids, and many plants from the Amazon region. Many of these plants have medicinal and ceremonial uses and are part of our Ethnobotanical collection.

In addition to the greenhouse facilities, we have five E7/2 Conviron Plant Growth Chamber units, as well as one eighty square foot walk-in chamber. These units are used by graduate students and professors with very specific cultural requirements for optimal plant growth.

Public Visiting Hours for the Conservatory

The Conservatory is open to the public daily from 7:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m., special circumstances not withstanding.
School groups and garden club tours must be arranged in advance.
Artists, gardeners, tinkerers, dreamers, readers, thinkers, general plant lovers, and green and brown thumbs encouraged to visit.

Contact the Conservatory

Directions to the Conservatory

Brown Herbarium
Hours: Friday from 10:00am - 12:00 and by appointment

Collection Manager: Lyn Hayden

Contact: Lyn_Hayden@Brown.edu

Phone: 863-2375

More pictures

Articles of Interest

It’s a bug-eat-bug world inside the Brown greenhouse by Anna Henderson ’03. George Street Journal, April 25, 2003

Sowing seeds of science in Brown's greenhouses by Elizabeth Hammond Pyle. George Street Journal.

Off Hours: Fred Jackson: Greenhouse manager, talk show host by Scott J. Turner. George Street Journal.