Botanical Gardens in India

What is a Botanical Garden?

• Botanical Gardens in India – A botanical garden is a place where plants, especially ferns, conifers and flowering plants, are grown and exhibited for the purposes of research, conservation, and education.
• This differentiates them from parks and pleasure gardens where plants, usually with beautiful flowers, are grown for public amenity.
• It is established for the purpose of education and research through libraries, herbaria, laboratories, and museums. Botanical gardens that specialize in trees are sometimes referred to as arboreta. They are occasionally associated with zoos.
• Botanical gardens are among those beautiful places where you can see plants from a variety of species.
• The history of Botanic Gardens traced back to the 3000 years ago in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. The Romans were well versed in the medicinal properties of plants. Mummification is the best example of the uses of medicinal properties of the plants.
• Luca Ghini was the first person to establish a botanical garden on scientific lines in 1543 at Pisa in Italy.

Criteria for Consideration to be a Botanical Garden

• An underlying scientific basis for the collections
• Proper documentation of the collections, including wild origin
• Monitoring of the plants in the collections
• Adequate labelling of the plants
• Open to the public
• Communication of information to other gardens, institutions and the public
• Exchange of seed or other materials with other botanic gardens, arboreta or research institutions
• Undertaking of scientific or technical research on plants in the collections

Importance Botanical Gardens in India

• Botanical gardens provide valuable information on various plants such as local flora, bonsai, rare plants etc.
• It helps in the study of taxonomic research. They supply facilities for courses in local flora, horticulture, hybridization, plant propagation, etc.
• It helps in the botanical research.
• It is a place where a variety of endangered species are conserved and propagated.
• Botanical gardens supply wide range of plant species, seeds, flowers, fruits for botanical research. They act as “outdoor laboratories” for students and researchers.
• It helps in the conservation of varieties of plants species.
• They create job opportunities for a large number of young botanists.

List of Botanical Gardens in India

• Here is the List of Important Botanical Gardens in India.

Interesting Facts about Botanical Garden in India

• Government botanical garden located in Udamangalam in Tamil Nadu, is famous for the huge collection of roses. This garden is considered as the largest garden for roses in India.
• Lal Bagh is termed as Red garden situated in Bangalore. It is a genetic centre for maintaining plants. Various scientific, technical researches are organized here.
• Agri horticultural society is located in Alipore, Kolkata is famous for growing huge collections of rare medicinal plants. Variety of medicinal plants, ornamental plants, rare trees, uncommon trees, bonsai, cactus, tissue culture products, floriculture and organic vegetarian items are found here.
• The Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden or Indian Botanical Garden (West Bengal) is the largest and oldest botanical garden in India.
• Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose /Indian botanical garden is located in Shibpur, Howrah in West Bengal. This botanical garden is famous for the wide variety of species of plants. The Great Banyan Tree is the landmark of this garden which is considered as the largest in the world.
• Lloyd Botanic Garden, situated at an altitude of about 2100 m in the heart of Darjeeling, West Bengal, The most interesting plant over here is the 118-year-old woody climber Wisteria chinensis.
• National Cactus and Succulent Botanical Garden and Research Centre, situated in Panchkula, Haryana, is one of the largest Cactus and Succulent Botanical Garden in India.
• Malabar Botanical Garden and Institute for Plant Sciences, Kozhikode, Kerala, has the largest collection of aquatic plant species in India.
• The first botanical garden named ‘Shivalik Arboretum’ has been inaugurated in Nainital, Uttarakhand, for conserving over 210 species of trees found in the Shivalik range of Himalayas.

 

  So this was all about the Botanical Gardens of India and Complete State-wise List of Botanical Gardens in India. 

 

Similar Notes – UNESCO World Heritage Sites in India

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