Botanical Garden

Introduction:

Botanica garden is an area of collection, cultivation, protection, and displaying a wide range of plant species with their data is known as a botanical garden. Botanica or botanical garden is an educational institute that is helpful to scientific workers, students, and people who want to awaken their interest in plants and to get a wide range of knowledge regarding botany (study of plants). In botanical gardens, people normally grow exotic, indigenous, and rare species which are rare but the information from them is more important to know. These botanical gardens may be in greenhouses, poly houses, shade houses with special plants like tropical plants or exotic plants. Botanical gardens may be independent institutions, government projects, or affiliated to universities/institutions. Their role is to maintain a document collection of living plants for reference, case study, observations, and display for educational tours. These are helpful not only to botanists but also to tourists, students, horticulturists, home gardeners, nurserymen, etc.

Outline:

The botanical garden is a garden of collection, cultivation, protecting, and displaying important plant species with their scientific details. It is an area that is totally dedicated to the growing of exotic, indigenous, and rare species for display, research, and study. Besides growing the plants they will also provide scientific information regarding plants for getting to know knowledge about those species. The information they mention are scientific, the common name of species, taxonomy (kingdom, order, family, subfamily, class, genus, species), the origin of the plant, and in some places they will also mention the importance/ uses and the distribution of that plant species.

It is not merely a landscape that is designed for attraction. Even though they look attractive they are planted and cultivated for research and study purposes but nowadays they mainly become displayed for international tourists and educational tours. The origin of modern botanical gardens is traced to the appointments given for scientists for growing medicinal plants which were crucial in the sixteenth century, Italy.

There are some famous botanical gardens situated in India such as:

• Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden- west Bengal
• Agri Horticultural Society of India- west Bengal
• Lalbagh- Karnataka
• Lloyd’s Botanical Garden- West Bengal

Role and functions of the botanical garden:

There are many uses of botanical gardens as we discussed which are mainly used for research, education, and observation. Ferdinand Von Mueller who is the director of the royal botanical garden located in Melbourne stated that “in all cases, the objects of a botanical garden must be mainly scientific and predominantly instructive”. Let’s see the functions of the botanical garden.

• Useful for scientific research
• Display of plant university
• Study of plant taxonomy
• Referred as an outdoor lab
• Serves as germplasm bank of wild relatives which are economically important
• Useful for educational tours which make students get more knowledge regarding plants and to create environmental awareness.
• Center for conservation, endangered, rare, and exotic species.
• Living plant materials for research.
• They may be used as pollution indicators by growing plants susceptible to pollution.
• Conserve flora and fauna.
• Introduction of many plants to society
• Useful for herbarium too
• Garden therapy
• Peaceful place to relax too

Some botanica gardens heritage the landscapes for attraction which often take second place besides research, education. Some botanical gardens are also selling seeds, plants for visitors. Besides these, they also adopt some programs like breeding centers within botanical gardens.

• The first botanical garden is located in Oman which is one of the largest botanical gardens in the world.

Hoomaluhia botanical garden:

Hoomaluhia is one of the botanical gardens located in Hawaii. It was established in 1982 on approximately 400 acres. It was built by the United States Army corps of engineers for flood protection. Special emphasis is placed on conserving plants native to Hawaii and Polynesia as well as Arecaceae, aroids, and heliconias. It was constructed due to flood protection so they constructed a dam holding pond. Trees in this garden are much older and they also have a beautiful landscape design in their garden.

Man has begun to cultivate plants in the garden for their food, drugs, or to grow beautiful flowers. The botanical gardens reflect human culture. In India, the botanical gardens started at an early time probably from 546B.C. the famous Indian physician Jivaka Kumar Bhaccha who flourished during the reign of King Bimbisara of modern Bihar from 546 to 494 b.c. made an intensive survey of the medicinal plants in India. In India, they started growing botanic gardens mainly for the drug plant or we can say medicinal plants. Botanical gardens are now distributed all over the world as the visiting percentage is increasing.

Importance of this chapter in Neet:

The botanical garden is a basic topic that is mostly placed in the beginning chapters of botany even though it is easy but it is a scoring area where we need little memorization for figuring the botanical gardens and their places and also the plant list which is mostly growing in botanical gardens. Botanical gardens are live projects for research, education, and also for observing. It contains exotic, rare, endangered species with their scientific information like scientific name of plant species, the common name of plant species, the taxonomy of the plant species, distribution, and also uses of that plant species. It is a scoring area from which you can score high marks. By thinking it is easy we can’t neglect this topic which is very beneficial to you in the competitive exam.

Also read: Biodiversity

Frequently Asked Question (FAQs):

Question: The royal botanical garden situated in?

Answer: Royal botanical garden is one of the famous botanical gardens which is located in Kew, London.

Question: What are the functions of a botanical garden?

Answer: These are some functions of the botanical garden

• Useful for scientific research.
• Display of plant university.
• Study of plant taxonomy.
• Referred to as an outdoor lab.
• Serves as the germplasm bank of wild relatives which are economically important.
• Useful for educational tours which make students get more knowledge regarding plants and to create environmental awareness.
• Center for conservation, endangered, rare, and exotic species.
• Living plant materials for research.
• They may be used as pollution indicators by growing plants susceptible to pollution.
• Conserve flora and fauna.
• Introduction of many plants to society.
• Useful for the herbarium too.
• Garden therapy.
• Peaceful place to relax too.

Question: Name some famous botanical gardens in India?

Answer: There are some famous botanical gardens situated in India. They are

Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden- west Bengal

Agri Horticultural Society of India- west Bengal

Lalbagh- Karnataka

Lloyd’s Botanical Garden- west Bengal

Question: Write about hoomaluhia botanical garden?

Answer: Hoomaluhia is one of the botanical gardens located in Hawaii. It was established in 1982 on approximately 400 acres. It was built by the United States Army corps of engineers for flood protection. Special emphasis is placed on conserving plants native to Hawaii and Polynesia as well as Arecaceae, aroids, and heliconias. It was constructed due to flood protection so they constructed a dam holding pond. Trees in this garden are much older and they also have beautiful landscape designs in their garden.