On 17 October 1755, Fernando VI ordered the creation of the Real Jardín Botánico (Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid). It is an 8 hectares botanical garden in Madrid. In 1939 it became a research centre of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Spanish National Research Council, CSIC) dedicated to research and conserve the current biodiversity of plants, fungi and other organisms in a context of urgent environmental challenges. It contained more than 2,000 plants, collected by José Quer , a botanist and surgeon, during his numerous travels throughout the Iberian Peninsula or obtained through exchanges with other European botanists.