The Carboniferous Gardens

In the beginning, coal was made...

Do you know how coal formed? Find out with a fun visit to the Carboniferous Gardens: the World's First Garden, the dinosaurs' watering hole, swamps, virgin forests, the steppe, the gingko biloba and sequoia forests, etc…
This 32-acre park takes you on an evolutionary trip through the plant species from the Carboniferous to our own era. Discover a wide range of living fossils and archaic plants.
Beginning 300 million years ago, experience the formation of coal through the ages.

The World's First Garden

At the beginning of the Palaeozoic, 500 million years ago, life had not yet colonised the land.

The swamp

A hot, wet climate from the Cretaceous to the end of the Mesozoic.
The landscapes are dominated by conifers and flowered plants started to appear (orchids, water lilies).

The primal forest

Equatorial plants gradually declined to make way for conifers (sequoias).
The reptiles conquer all habitats (air, sea and land).

The Gingko Biloba forests

A typical mid-Mesozoic tree from the Jurassic.
The heyday of the dinosaurs....

The Virgin Forest

More than 300 million years ago, carboniferous plants (Palaeozoic) abounded : huge reserves of fossil coal were formed around the world.

The dinosaurs' watering hole

The appearance of reptiles and dinosaurs, which disappear at the end of the cetaceous following a major catastrophe (probably an asteroid impact). The Tertiary is characterized by the rise of the mammals.