Description

A botanical garden is a place in which plantsare grown and displayed primarily for scientific and educationalpurposes. It consists chiefly of a collection of living plants,grown out-of-doors or under glass in greenhouses andconservatories. It usually includes, in addition, a collection ofdried plants, or herbarium, and such facilities as lecture rooms,laboratories, libraries, museums, and experimental or researchplantings.

The plants in a botanical garden may be arranged according toone or more subdivisions of botanical science. The arrangements maybe systematic (by plant classification), ecological (by relation toenvironment), or geographic (by region of origin). The largergardens often include special groupings, such as rock gardens,water gardens, wildflower gardens, and collections of horticulturalgroups produced by plant breeding, such as roses, tulips, orrhododendrons. A plantation restricted to exhibits of woody plantsis called an arboretum. Most botanical gardens will incorporatewater features.

History of Botanical Gardens

One of the earliest botanical gardens for the study of plantswas established in ancient Athens about 340 B.C. by Aristotle andrun by his pupil Theophrastus. The oldest public one in the worldare those established at Pisa, Italy, in 1543; at Padua, Italy, in1545; at Paris in 1635; and at Berlin in 1679. In the 16th and 17thcenturies, herbalists cultivated medicinal herbs in privategardens. In 1673, the Society of Apothecaries planted the ChelseaPhysic Garden in London to provide materials for research andmedicine. The American botanist John Bartram near Philadelphiaestablished the first experimental botanical garden in the U.S. in1728.

Where Botanical Gardens Are Found

Almost every major city has a botanical garden. The RoyalBotanic Gardens, better known as Kew Gardens, near London, foundedin 1759, is the largest in the world. Experiments and research donethere have led to the transplanting of commercially productivecrops, such as rubber, from their native habitats to other parts ofthe world.

More than 300 botanical gardens are in the U.S. Among the mostimportant are the Missouri Botanic Gardens in Saint Louis (1859);the New York Botanical Garden in Bronx Park (1895) and the BrooklynBotanic Garden, both in New York City. The Arnold Arboretum,established in 1872, is located at Harvard University.

Benefits of Visiting a Botanical Garden

By visiting botanical gardens or arboretums, city dwellers candiscover a part of the natural world to which they ordinarily haveno access, escape from the pressure of dense urban population, andperhaps even develop new interests and hobbies having to do withthe natural environment. In these special parks, plants from allover the world are scientifically cultivated, studied, andartistically displayed for the pleasure and enlightenment of thepublic. Arboretums specialize in raising trees and shrubs (woodyplants) in their natural surroundings. They may exist independentlyor as part of a larger botanical garden.

Unlike ordinary parks, botanical gardens and arboretums are laidout with more than just the beauty of the landscape in mind. Theywill offer sculpture and cast stone water features Although treesand shrubs may be interspersed throughout the area to enhance thepleasant surroundings, plants are usually grouped according totheir scientific relationships. Often there are small, specialgardens, such as rose gardens, rock gardens, wildflower gardens, orJapanese landscape gardens contained within the larger botanicalgardens. Many have sections devoted to plants of particulargeographic origins, such as a tropical plant section, or an aquaticplant section. Usually, plants are labeled according to commonname, scientific name, and region of origin.