The gardens date back to 1754 when Empress Maria Theresa founded the Hortus Botanicus Vindobonensis with renowned botanist Nikolaus von Jacquin as one of its first directors. His son, Joseph von Jacquin, succeeded him as director, as did a number of other leading botanists in turn, including Stefan Endlicher, Eduard Fenzl, Anton Kerner von Marilaun, Richard von Wettstein, Fritz Knoll, Karl von Frisch, and Lothar Geitler. The Institute of Botany building was opened in 1905. However, at the end of the Second World War, the institute, all the greenhouses, and the entire garden area were bombed and severely damaged, and thus required to be built up.
The gardens currently contain more than 11,500 species of plants, including well-documented tropical plants, particularly of such families as Annonaceae, Rubiaceae, Gesneriaceae, Bromeliaceae or Orchidaceae.[1] Its greenhouses (ca. 1,500m²) were originally built between 1890 and 1893, but were damaged during the Second World War; they were renovated or rebuilt between 1970 and 1995. Only the tropical greenhouse in the centre of the complex is open for the public.