- Botanical garden
Botanical gardens grow a wide variety of
plant s primarily to categorize and document for scientific purposes.Botanist s andhorticulturalists tend the flora and maintain the garden's library andherbarium of dried and documented plant material. Botanical gardens may also serve to entertain and educate the public, upon whom many depend for funding. However, not all botanical gardens are open to the public: for example theChelsea Physic Garden . According to theBotanic Gardens Conservation International , "Botanic gardens are institutions holding documented collections of living plants for the purposes of scientific research, conservation, display and education."Research
From the late 18th century onward,
Europe an botanical gardens began sending plant-collecting expeditions to various parts of the world and publishing their findings. Voyages of exploration routinely included botanists for this purpose. Subsequent scientific work studied how these exotic plants might be adapted to grow in the garden's locale, how to classify them, and how to propagate rare orendangered species . The Royal Botanic Gardens inKew , nearLondon , has continuously published journals and more recently catalogues and databases since this time.Educational work
Educational projects at botanical gardens range from introductions to plants that thrive in different environments to practical advice for the home gardener. Many have plant shops, selling flower, herb, and vegetable seedlings suitable for transplantation. Some gardens such as the
UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research and theChicago Botanic Garden have plant breeding programs and introduce new plants to the horticultural trade.History
The first modern botanical gardens were founded in Northern
Italy in connection with universities:
*Pisa (1544) byLuca Ghini (1490-1556)
*Padua (1545)
*Florence (1545)
*Bologna (1567)Other European towns and universities then followed suit:
* Valencia,Spain (1567)
*Leiden ,Netherlands (1590)
*Montpellier ,France (1593)
*Heidelberg ,Germany (1597)
*Tübingen ,Germany byLeonhart Fuchs
*Copenhagen ,Denmark (1600)
* Oxford,England (1621)
*Uppsala ,Sweden (1655)
*Hannover ,Germany (1666)Egypt has several botanical gardens. One them, the
Orman Garden in Giza, is over 130 years old.ee also
*
List of botanical gardens
*Plant collecting External links
* [http://www.bgci.org Botanic Gardens Conservation International] The World's Largest Plant Conservation Network, working with 800 Botanic Gardens Worldwide.
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