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Botanical garden
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Botanical gardens or botanic gardens[nb 1] are generally well-tended parks displaying a wide range of plants labelled with their botanical names. They may contain specialist plant collections such as cacti and succulent plants, herb gardens, plants from particular parts of the world, and so on; there may be greenhouses, again with special collections such as tropical plants, alpine plants or other exotic plants. Visitor services often include garden tours, educational displays, art exhibitions, book rooms, open-air theatrical and musical performances and other entertainment.
Botanical gardens are often run by universities or other scientific research organizations and often have associated herbaria and research programmes in plant taxonomy or some other aspect of botanical science. In principle their role is to maintain documented collections of living plants for the purposes of scientific research, conservation, display and education, although this will depend on the resources available and the special interests pursued at each particular garden.
The origin of modern botanical gardens can be traced to European medieval medicinal gardens known as physic gardens, the first of these being founded during the Italian Renaissance in the 16th century. This early concern with medicinal plants changed in the 17th century to an interest in the new plant imports from explorations outside Europe as botany gradually established its independence from medicine. In the 18th century systems of nomenclature and classification were devised by botanists working in the herbaria and universities associated with the gardens, these systems often being displayed in the gardens as educational "order beds". With the rapid rise of European imperialism in the late 18th century botanic gardens were established in the tropics and economic botany became a focus with the hub at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, near London.
Over the years botanical gardens, as cultural and scientific organisations, have responded to the interests of botany and horticulture. Nowadays most botanical gardens display a mix of the themes mentioned and more: having a strong connection with the general public there is the opportunity to provide visitors with information relating to the environmental issues being faced at the start of the 21st century, especially those relating to plant conservation and sustainability.
Definition
Victoria amazonica, Giant Amazon Water Lily
The role of major botanical gardens worldwide has been considered so broadly similar as to fall within textbook definitions. The following definition was produced by staff of the Liberty Hyde Bailey Hortorium of Cornell University in 1976. It covers in some detail the many functions and activities generally associated with botanical gardens.[1]
"A botanical garden is a controlled and staffed institution for the maintenance of a living collection of plants under scientific management for purposes of education and research, together with such libraries, herbaria, laboratories, and museums as are essential to its particular undertakings. Each botanical garden naturally develops its own special fields of interests depending on its personnel, location, extent, available funds, and the terms of its charter. It may include greenhouses, test grounds, an herbarium, an arboretum, and other departments. It maintains a scientific as well as a plant-growing staff, and publication is one of its major modes of expression."
This broad outline is then expanded:
"The botanic garden maybe an independent institution, a governmental operation, or affiliated to a college or university. If a department of an educational institution, it may be related to a teaching program. In any case, it exists for scientific ends and is not to be restricted or diverted by other demands. It is not merely a landscaped or ornamental garden, although it may be artistic, nor is it an experiment station or yet a park with labels on the plants. The essential element is the intention of the enterprise, which is the acquisition and dissemination of botanical knowledge."
The "New Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening" (1999) points out that among the various kinds of organisations now known as botanical gardens there are many public gardens with little scientific activity, and it cites a more abbreviated definition that was published by the World Wildlife Fund and IUCN when launching the ’’Botanic Gardens Conservation Strategy’’ in 1989: "A botanic garden is a garden containing scientifically ordered and maintained collections of plants, usually documented and labelled, and open to the public for the purposes of recreation, education and research."[2] This has been further reduced by Botanic Gardens Conservation International to the following definition which "encompasses the spirit of a true botanic garden"[3]: "A botanic garden is an institution holding documented collections of living plants for the purposes of scientific research, conservation, display and education."[4]
The botanical gardens network
Worldwide there are now about 1800 botanical gardens and arboreta in about 150 countries (mostly in temperate regions) of which about 400 are in Europe, 200 in North America, 150 in Russia.[www 1] and an increasing number in East Asia.[www 2] These gardens attract about 150 million visitors a year so it is hardly surprising that many people gained their first exciting introduction to the wonders of the plant world in a botanical garden.[2]
Historically, botanical gardens exchanged plants through the publication of seed lists (these were called Latin: Index Semina in the 18th century). This was a means of transferring both plants and information between botanical gardens. This system continues today although the possibility of genetic piracy and the transmission of invasive species has received greater attention in recent times.[5]
The International Association of Botanic Gardens[www 3] was formed in 1954 as a worldwide organisation affiliated to the International Union of Biological Sciences. More recently coordination has also been provided by Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI)[www 4] which has the mission "To mobilise botanic gardens and engage partners in securing plant diversity for the well-being of people and the planet". BGCI has over 700 members – mostly botanic gardens – in 118 countries and strongly supports the Global strategy for plant conservation[www 5] by producing a range resources and publications, and by organizing international conferences and conservation programs.
Communication also happens regionally. In the United States there is the American Public Gardens Association[www 6] (formerly the American Association of Botanic Gardens and Arboreta) and in Australasia there is the Botanic Gardens of Australia and New Zealand (BGANZ).[www 7]
Historical development
The history of botanical gardens is closely linked to the history of botany itself. When the botanical gardens of the 16th and 17th centuries changed from medicinal gardens to sites displaying beautiful, strange and new[6] (sometimes economically important) plants from distant lands, and further in the 18th century to sites demonstrating the latest plant classification systems devised by botanists working in the associated herbaria, and then to the modern mix of specialist and eclectic gardens serving many interests of horticulture and botany.[7]
Precursors
The idea of "scientific" gardens used specifically for the study of plants is probably ancient.[8]
Grand gardens of ancient history
with the Tower of Babel in the background
16th-century hand-coloured engraving by Martin Heemskerck
Substantial gardens set aside for economic use or display, containing at least some plants gained by special collection or military campaigns abroad, are known from ancient Egypt, Assyria, and Mexico. In about 2800 BCE Chinese Emperor Shen Nung sent collectors to distant regions searching for plants with economic or medicinal value.[9] Early medieval Islamic Spain had gardens, like that of Ibn Wafid's at Toledo in the 11th century, which have been called "botanical".[10] It has also been suggested that the Spanish conquest of Mesoamerica influenced the history of the botanical garden[8] as gardens in Tenochtitlan, Nezahualcoyotl, Chalco and elsewhere greatly impressed the invaders as the Aztecs knew many more medicinal plants than did the classical world of Europe.</ref>[11][12]
Physic gardens
Botanical gardens, in the modern sense, developed from physic gardens, whose main purpose was to grow herbs for medicinal use. Such gardens have a long history. In Europe, for example, Aristotle (384 BCE – 322 BCE) is said to have had a physic garden in the Lyceum at Athens, which was used for educational purposes and for the study of botany and this was inherited, or possibly set up, by his pupil Theophrastus, the "Father of Botany".[13][14]
Though these ancient gardens shared some of the characteristics of botanical gardens, the forerunners of modern botanical gardens are generally regarded as being the medieval monastic physic gardens that originated after the decline of the Roman Empire at the time of Emperor Charlemagne (742 – 789 CE).[15] These contained a hortus, a garden used mostly for vegetables, and another section set aside for specially-labelled medicinal plants and this was called the herbularis or hortus medicus — more generally known as a physic garden. These gardens were probably given impetus when Charlemagne issued a capitulary of 73 herbs to be used in the physic gardens of his dominions. Many of these were found in British gardens even though they only occurred naturally in continental Europe, demonstrating earlier plant introduction.[16] Certainly the founding of many early botanic gardens was instigated by members of the medical profession.[17]
Sixteenth century European Gardens
