Woodward's Gardens in San Francisco is the subject of this albumen stereoview, number 1630 in the Watkins' Pacific Coast series, published by Carleton Watkins from his gallery at 26 Montgomery Street, San Francisco. Watkins, among the most celebrated landscape photographers of the American West, documented the gardens extensively during their operation as one of the city's premier public attractions in the 1870s and 1880s.

The conservatory building dominates the frame, its iron-and-glass dome topped with an ornate finial and encircled by decorative cresting, with arched windows running along the lower facade. Tall pampas grass and spiky yucca plants fill the foreground garden bed, while a figure stands in the shadowed entrance portico at left and sculpted urns flank the entry steps. A manicured lawn extends toward the viewer with conical garden markers visible at the lower edge.

Woodward's Gardens, opened by Robert B. Woodward in 1866 on Mission Street, served as San Francisco's most popular recreational destination until its closure in 1891, combining a zoo, museum, art gallery, and botanical conservatory on nearly four acres.

The mount is orange with rounded corners, the Watkins' Pacific Coast imprint printed vertically on both the left and right borders, with the series number and title "Gard n View, Woodward Gardens" printed in the lower right of the recto. The reverse is plain pink stock with no additional imprint.