A new update is now available for the Orto Botanico di Padova app, the smartphone application that guides visitors through the Padua Garden. A new itinerary through the ancient Garden has now been conceived thanks to a partnership between Padua University and the Regione del Veneto, adding a new element to the promotion of culture and respect for biodiversity.

Thanks to the new "In natura nei parchi del Veneto" pathway, which illustrates 30 vegetable species indicated on the Red List of flora threatened with extinction in Veneto, visitors can access the new intensified content in the Hortus Cinctus and Roccera Alpina area. The plants in the parks described in the app can be observed directly in the Garden or in the region’s six natural parks. The relative botanical studies on some of these, especially those that are rare and threatened in nature (such as some Alpine species), and which for climatic and environmental reasons could not survive in the city, have been associated with plants belonging to the same genus and present in Padua, while individual species at risk can be discovered by visiting the parks. The project involves not only the Padua Botanical Garden but also the Dolomiti d’Ampezzo regional park, the Lessinia regional park, the Fiume Sile regional park, the Colli Euganei park, the Delta del Po park and the Dolomiti Bellunesi national park.

The smartphone app allows access to information on species selected directly on the phone and visitors are then sent notification when they are near the stops on the route. The notifications are sent using iBeacon technology, already tested in the Biodiversity Garden glasshouses. At present available only in a very few Italian museum systems, this innovative technology allows a different approach to the presentation of botanical content, flanking the real visit with a virtual one.