Botanical Gardens in Mauritius

The oldest garden on the island and, by most accounts, the oldest botanical garden in the southern hemisphere. It was laid out in the 1700s and developed from 1770 by Pierre Poivre, the spice trader who used it to break the Dutch monopoly on nutmeg and clove. Around 37 hectares, with the giant Amazonian water lilies in the central pond, an avenue of royal palms, and a talipot palm that flowers once after decades and then dies. Aldabra giant tortoises and deer live on the grounds.

The second garden, also named for Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, on the Route des Jardins in Curepipe. It sits in the wettest, highest part of Mauritius, so it is often in cloud, which is exactly what its collection wants. The reason to make the trip is one tree: the last surviving Hyophorbe amaricaulis on earth, the loneliest palm in the world, standing behind a protective fence. Every attempt to propagate it has failed, so when it goes the species goes.

A nature walk rather than a botanical garden, and worth saying so, but it belongs here because it puts planted beds and genuine indigenous forest side by side within about 3 km of Curepipe. That contrast is the useful part: it shows you what the island's upland forest actually looks like next to what was introduced. Free, quiet on weekdays, and easy to combine with the Curepipe garden and Trou aux Cerfs.

A 26 hectare coral island off Pointe d'Esny, and the single most important place on this list botanically: it holds the last significant remnant of Mauritius's dry coastal ebony forest. The Mauritian Wildlife Foundation has spent decades clearing introduced species and replanting endemics. Access is by guided boat tour only and needs booking ahead. Pink pigeons, Mauritius fodies and free roaming Aldabra tortoises live there as stand ins for the extinct native ones.

Not a garden at all, but where most of what survives of Mauritius's native upland forest actually is: 6,754 hectares, roughly two percent of the island. If you want to see endemic Mauritian plants growing where they belong rather than in beds, this is the place, and the nursery at Petrin raises them for replanting. Around 60 km of marked trails, with the Alexandra Falls and Gorges viewpoints reachable by car.

A 497 hectare park in the northeast that is mostly old eucalyptus and araucaria plantation rather than native forest, and that is precisely why it is instructive: it shows what happened to most of the island's original cover. Pockets of native vegetation survive among it, and the park is the last stronghold of the Mauritius paradise flycatcher, a bird found nowhere else. Quiet, flat walking, and almost no visitors.