Botanical Gardens

Botanical gardens are constructed to preserve plants and culture them for research and studies. The plants that are cultivated here are labelled with their specific scientific names. These botanical gardens are of great use for scientists and researchers. Students visit these gardens as a knowledge excursion from their schools and colleges. These gardens consist of a wide range of plant species, starting from cacti and ending with herbs and bushes from different parts of the world. Many exotic plants, like Birds of paradise, tulips, lotus, etc., are present in those gardens, along with tropical and alpine plants. They are also for entertainment purposes, as it is a pleasure to watch beautiful flowers and plants and trees in one place. Botanical gardens are governed by universities or government authorities. Often, they are controlled by scientific research institutions where they have made it up with herbaria or plant taxonomies. 

The purpose of a botanic garden is as follows:

• The plants which are cultivated here are used for scientific research.
• These gardens show the wide range of plants present on earth.
• Informative for students.
• Quite good as an entertainment purpose.
• Records are kept for living plants and extinct plants in these gardens (herbaria) and their performance.

The origin of botanical gardens

The world’s first botanical garden was established in Padua in 1545. The professors of the botany department had a discussion with the medical authorities of various universities in Italy around the 16th century. They didn’t negotiate the curation of the medicinal gardens. 

The gardens are as ancient as a civilization. People of that time used to plant trees for their benefit. They benefited from food supplements to get help for making medicine and for decoration purposes with beautiful flowers. Few tribes at that time used to grow vegetables for their appetite. In ancient times, temples, palaces, and houses had beautiful gardens consisting of many varieties of flowering plants and fruits. The ancient Egyptian peoples used to plant the most seeds, which was astonishing for their neighbouring places. The ancient world has the most amazing wonder, the “Hanging Garden” in Babylon.

The well known botanical gardens of India

The National botanical garden of India is the Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden, situated in Howrah, West Bengal. It was previously called the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta, and is now commonly known as the Calcutta Botanic Garden.

Many more famous gardens in India are as follows:

Bangalore’s Mysore State Botanical Garden

For its appearance, maintenance, and scientific usefulness, it is one of the best gardens in the eastern regions. World Botanic Gardens had a mother institution known as KEW. It helped this garden of Lalbagh by providing them with newly trained workers and new plants in 1856.

Darjeeling’s Lloyd Botanic Garden

Sir Ashley Eden, the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, initiated the establishment of a botanical garden near Darjeeling in the Himalayas. This garden was a branch of the National Botanical Garden of India situated in Shibpur, Howrah, West Bengal. The garden covers 40 acres of land, which was donated by Mr. William Lloyd.

Lucknow’s National Botanic Garden

This garden, previously known as Sikander, was established by Nawab Sadaat Ali Khan. Later on, this garden was enlarged and modified by Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, and he named the garden after his beloved wife. Gradually, this garden was converted into a botanical garden by Professor K.N. Kaul around 1946.

Dehradun’s Botanical Garden of Forest Research Institute

C.E. Parkinson established the newest member of the family of the botanical gardens of India around 1934. Later on, N.L. Bor and M.B. Raizada modified the garden and made many contributions to its herbarium. Exotic plants were introduced by S. Kedarnath around 1962.

Importance of botanical gardens

Botanical gardens are where plants of different varieties are collected and preserved, including all types of plants like medicinal, ornamental, etc. They are useful and valuable to botanists and the tourists who visit these gardens. From several places in the world, a prominent and renowned botanical garden has its plant species. They include the things which also actually made up a botanic garden are: 

• The greenhouses
• A herbarium
• A library for storing the vast knowledge
• Gives qualitative and quantitative information for economic plants
• Research laboratories and many more

Conclusion

The purpose of a botanical garden is to maintain the varieties of plant species as living plants in tissue culture and seed banks. This collection of plants helps in educational purposes and scientific research. The botanical gardens play an essential part in ex-situ conservation for different varieties of plants and in the site of in-situ conservation. These botanical gardens play a significant role in sustaining these conservations and development. Thus we can consider gardens the second biggest classroom for gathering knowledge— “in vitro” cultivation field gene bank research on reproductive biology. The honourable persons who have successfully established these botanical gardens will always be recalled for their contributions. Knowing the variety of plants standing in just one plant won’t have been possible without their contributions. Therefore botanical gardens are a vast source of knowledge for those fond of plants.