Bosque Rodrigues Alves, Botanical garden in Marco district, Belém, Brazil.

Bosque Rodrigues Alves covers 15 hectares in Belém, most of it native Amazonian forest with more than 10,000 trees of over 300 species, among them a 400-year-old quariquara and a 150-year-old maçaranduba. Paths and 19th-century buildings occupy the rest, and a lake crossed by a low wooden bridge lies before a thatched-roof shelter on slender posts.

The park opened in August 1883 as Bosque Municipal do Marco da Légua, conceived by José Coelho da Gama e Abreu, Baron of Marajó, as a tropical counterpart to Paris's Bois de Boulogne, during the reign of Pedro II. In 1929 intendente Antônio de Almeida Facióla restored its artworks and finished the surrounding wall and railing. It became the Amazon Botanical Garden in 2002 and was listed at state level in 1982.

The garden is home to Amazonian animals like parrots, toucans, and capuchin monkeys that live among historic structures, preserving the forest's living legacy. Visitors encounter these creatures in a setting that echoes the original rainforest environment.

The garden is open most days of the week with pathways that let you walk through different vegetation zones. Wear good shoes and allow several hours to explore the grounds comfortably.

The garden keeps a quariquara tree estimated at around 400 years old and a 150-year-old maçaranduba, survivors of the forest that stood here before Belém expanded in the 1950s. Visitors reach only about 20 percent of the 15 hectares; the rest remains dense jungle.