The University of Mississippi Insight Park, Medicinal Plant Garden

The Medicinal Plant Garden was created in 1965 for the cultivation and study of medicinally important plants. It is now used for research in drug discovery for the faculty and students of the School of Pharmacy at the University of Mississippi. A seed bank was established in 2002, allowing the exchange of germ plasm with national and international botanical gardens. The Maynard W. Quimby Medicinal Plant Garden has one of the finest living medicinal plant collections in the U.S.

The Medicinal Plant Garden includes a laboratory building, horticulture building, green house, and shade house for large plants. The laboratory serves as the main hub for the Garden as well as a research facility. The inviting, contemporary structure houses offices, a conference room, and a kitchen/break room. Innovative, energy efficient features include an eyebrow canopy which hangs from the building over the windows and living green screens which accommodate vertical plant growth for vine studies. Both the greens screens and eyebrow canopy shade the facility’s south and west facades.

Another sustainable feature, a 20,000-gallon water retention system, harvests water runoff from the roofs of the laboratory and the horticulture building. The staff then uses it to water the greenhouse and on the four acre grounds surrounding the facility.

Photography by Hubert Worley (exterior photos)
Photography by Crystal Coleman (interior photos)