Arrakeen conservatory

The conservatory was a private garden on the roof of the government mansion at Arrakeen, on the desert world of Arrakis. It was crowded with wet-climate plants and fed by a fountain, a waste of water that the Fremen found hard to stomach. Jessica's answer about what the Atreides meant to do with it caught the attention of Liet-Kynes, whose dream of a green Arrakis it matched. (Dune; The Dune Encyclopedia)

Description#

The conservatory stood on the roof of the government mansion at Arrakeen, behind an oval outer door secured with a palm lock. Filter glass turned the harsh white sunlight into a softer yellow light. Every available space was crowded with wet-climate plants, many of them dwarf varieties in pots or severely pruned. (Dune)

The Dune Encyclopedia gives the room as about ten square metres and lists its plants: mimosa, a flowering quince, dwarf cypresses and cedars, sondagi (the fern tulip of Tupali), a green-blossomed pleniscenta grown for its fragrance, a green-and-white-striped Akarso from Sikun, false orchids, a golden kowhai, flowering fogwood from Ecaz, giant mosses, broad-leaved aspidistras, and roses in pink, white, blue and variegated bloom. (The Dune Encyclopedia)

At the centre stood a small low fountain with fluted lips, and a clock-set servok with pipe and hose arms watered the fern trees and rubber plants. (Dune)

According to the Dune Encyclopedia, the fountain's water could have supported about a thousand Fremen. It also describes a robotic mulcher and dresser whose design fell well outside the Butlerian limits, programmed to stay hidden in the wall whenever humans were present. (The Dune Encyclopedia)

History#

The Dune Encyclopedia says the conservatory was built by Governor Tsimpo as a bridal present for his fourth wife, Hawtina, who came from the water planet Humidis. In its account the Fremen saw the room as anathema, a status symbol that wasted water, and called it a weirding room, fit only for witches. The head housekeeper, the Shadout Mapes, loathed it. (The Dune Encyclopedia)

The previous chatelaine, Lady Margot Fenring, left a warning for her Bene Gesserit sister in the room. Jessica found a note that led her to a hidden message on the underside of a leaf overhanging the table, warning that the Duke and his son were in danger. (Dune)

The Dune Encyclopedia adds that the warning came too late to stop the hunter-seeker attack on Paul Atreides, and that the note also warned of the danger of overindulging when near something desirable. (The Dune Encyclopedia)

Symbol of a green Arrakis#

At the Arrakeen dinner, when the water-shipper Lingar Bewt pressed the point about water spent on the conservatory, Jessica answered that the Atreides meant to hold it in trust for the people of Arrakis, in the hope that the planet's climate could one day be changed enough to grow such plants in the open. The answer struck Liet-Kynes, the planetologist whose life's work was exactly that change. (Dune)

The Dune Encyclopedia carries the room's story forward. In its account Jessica went back to the weirding room out of longing for Caladan after she and Paul retook the Arrakeen house, and Stilgar treated it with irreverence. During the Jihad, it says, Paul sent Fremen offplanet to see rivers, lakes, oceans and jungles and then to seek their like on Arrakis, until Arrakis itself became a larger wet-planet conservatory. (The Dune Encyclopedia)