Botanical Garden

Botanical Gardens Development

A botanical garden is an area in which plants are grown primarily for scientific study or viewing by the public. A garden solely for trees, shrubs, and vines is more exactly termed an arboretum. Some gardens are chiefly for scientific study, others emphases ornamental display and public education, and some are solely recreational areas. Many gardens maintain large herbaria, collections of dried plant specimens used as references for classifying unknown plants.

History Of Botanical Gardens

Some of the first botanical gardens were formal parks built as early as 2000 BC by the Assyrians. Most of the earliest gardens, however, were ancient Chinese and Egyptian temple gardens for raising fruit, vegetables, and medicinal herbs. The first record of such facilities is a description of the temple garden at Karnak, built in 1500 BC.

Stimulated by the reliance on herbal medicine in the 16th and 17th centuries AD, European medical schools founded botanical gardens devoted mainly to medicinal species. The gardens were used for training medical students, growing plants to make medicines, and conduction research.

Later Development of Botanical Gardens

As the science of botany grew during the 18th and 19th centuries, the traditional herbal gardens gave way to gardens for the scientific study, commercial development, and display of wider varieties of plants. Botanical gardens the spread rapidly, with the founding of such famous gardens as those in Kew (near London, 1759).

The United States today has more than 300 botanical gardens. The most important are the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Arboretum, the United States National Arboretum (Washington, DC), the Arnold Arboretum (Cambridge, Mass.), the Longwood Gardens (near Kennett Square, Pa.), the Missouri Botanical Gardens (St. Louis), The New York Botanical Gardens (Berkeley), the Holden Arboretum (Mentor, Ohio), and the Fairchild Tropical Garden (Miami). The foremost Canadian gardens include the Montreal Botanical Garden and the Dominion Arboretum and Botanic Garden (Ottawa).