- botanical garden
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a garden for the exhibition and scientific study of collected, growing plants, usually in association with greenhouses, herbariums, laboratories, etc.Also called botanic garden.[1775-85]
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or botanic gardenOriginally, a collection of living plants designed to illustrate relationships within plant groups.Most modern botanical gardens are concerned primarily with exhibiting ornamental plants in a scheme that emphasizes natural relationships. A display garden of mostly woody plants (shrubs and trees) is often called an arboretum. The botanical garden as an institution can be traced to ancient China and many Mediterranean countries, where such gardens were often centers for raising plants used for food and medicines. Botanical gardens are also reservoirs of valuable heritable characteristics, potentially important in the breeding of new varieties of plants. Still another function is the training of gardeners. The world's most famous botanical garden is Kew Gardens.* * *
German Botanischer Garten,botanical garden founded in 1914 by the German botanist Karl von Goebel in Munich. The garden's vast array of greenhouses, completed in 1958, includes 17 for display and 8 for service functions. The palm house is particularly notable. Other significant greenhouse collections are composed of alpine plants, insectivorous plants, cacti, African succulents, Crassula, and Mesembryanthemeae. The 20-hectare (50-acre) outdoor gardens contain about 10,000 plant species. Although of great intrinsic botanical importance, the plants are arranged for maximum aesthetic effect. The various plantings consist of a large rock garden featuring alpine species, an extensive systematic garden for instruction on plant evolution, several attractive display gardens for the public, and a series of wild gardens in which both indigenous and foreign species, including annuals, perennials, bulbs, and trees and shrubs, are grown. The garden also maintains the outstanding herbarium of Bavaria (the Botanical State Collection [Botanische Staatssammlung]), which contains about 1,500,000 specimens of dried plants.* * *
Universalium. 2010.
