According to the archives we own, the library stock began in 1859, that is when the Botanical Garden left La Croix-Rousse to be installed in the new Tête d’Or Park. The implantation of the garden in its actual place was supervised by Charles-Nicolas Seringe (1776-1858), Director of the town’s Plants Garden and author of many books about botany (Monographie des saules en Suisse, collaboration to De Candolle’s Prodrome…). In 1891, the city of Lyon took the decision of opening an extraordinary budget to finance the library of the Conservatoire of Botany.

No doubt that the collecting of the old stock as we know it today benefited of the presence of several authors-botanists at this time (Seringe, Cusin, Gilibert…) and of exchanges with other botanists (the Lyon Botanical Garden owns several books with dedications to the different directors who followed each other in the 19^th century).

A hand-written inventory that is still used today counts the books of the library since 1884. This notebook perfectly illustrates the missions of education and research specified since 1857 in the botanical garden’s refitment project.