---
title: "Botanical garden"
chunk: 2/5
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botanical_garden"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:29:01.074157+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Worldwide, there are now about 1800 botanical gardens and arboreta in about 150 countries (mostly in temperate regions) of which about 550 are in Europe (150 of which are in Russia), 200 in North America, and an increasing number in East Asia. These gardens attract about 300 million visitors a year.
Historically, botanical gardens exchanged plants through the publication of seed lists (called Latin: Indices Seminum in the 18th century). This was a means of transferring both plants and information between botanical gardens. This system continues today, though with attention to the risks of genetic piracy and transmission of invasive species.
The International Association of Botanic Gardens was formed in 1954 as a worldwide organisation affiliated to the International Union of Biological Sciences. More recently, coordination has also been provided by Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI), which has the mission "To mobilise botanic gardens and engage partners in securing plant diversity for the well-being of people and the planet".
Regional coordination is seen in the United States with the American Public Gardens Association (formerly the American Association of Botanic Gardens and Arboreta), while in Australasia there is the Botanic Gardens of Australia and New Zealand (BGANZ).

== History ==

The history of botanical gardens is closely linked to the history of botany itself. The botanical gardens of the 16th and 17th centuries were medicinal gardens, but the idea of a botanical garden changed to encompass displays of the beautiful, strange, new, and sometimes economically important plant trophies being returned from the European colonies and other distant lands. In the 18th century, they became more educational in function, demonstrating the latest plant classification systems devised by botanists working in the associated herbaria as they tried to order these new treasures. Then, in the 19th and 20th centuries, the trend was towards a combination of specialist and eclectic collections demonstrating aspects of both horticulture and botany.

=== Precursors ===
The idea of "scientific" gardens used specifically for the study of plants dates back to antiquity. The origin of modern botanical gardens is generally traced to the appointment of botany professors to the medical faculties of universities in 16th-century Renaissance Italy, which entailed curating a medicinal garden. However, the objectives, content, and audience of today's botanic gardens more closely resemble that of the grandiose gardens of antiquity and the educational garden of Theophrastus in the Lyceum of ancient Athens.

==== Grand gardens of ancient history ====

Near-Eastern royal gardens, set aside for economic use or display and containing at least some plants gained by special collecting trips or military campaigns abroad, are known from the second millennium BCE in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Crete, Mexico and China. In about 2800 BCE, the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung sent collectors to distant regions searching for plants with economic or medicinal value. It has also been suggested that the Spanish colonization of Mesoamerica influenced the history of the botanical garden. Gardens in Tenochtitlan, established by king Nezahualcoyotl, as well as gardens in Chalco (altépetl) and elsewhere, greatly impressed the Spanish invaders, not only with their appearance, but also because the indigenous Aztecs employed many more medicinal plants than did the classical world of Europe.
Early medieval gardens in Islamic Spain resembled later botanic gardens, an example being the 11th-century Huerta del Rey garden of physician and author Ibn Wafid (999–1075 CE) in Toledo. This was taken over by garden chronicler Ibn Bassal (fl. 1085 CE) until the Christian conquest in 1085 CE. Ibn Bassal then founded a garden in Seville, most of its plants being collected on a botanical expedition that included Morocco, Persia, Sicily, and Egypt. The medical school of Montpellier was also founded by Spanish Arab physicians, and by 1250 CE, it included a physic garden, but the site was not given botanic garden status until 1593.

==== Physic gardens ====
Botanical gardens developed from physic gardens, whose main purpose was to cultivate herbs for medical use as well as research and experimentation. Such gardens have a long history. In Europe, for example, Aristotle (384 BCE – 322 BCE) is said to have had a physic garden in the Lyceum at Athens, which was used for educational purposes and for the study of botany. This was inherited, or possibly set up, by his pupil Theophrastus, the "Father of Botany". There is some debate among science historians whether this garden was ordered and scientific enough to be considered "botanical"; instead, they attribute the earliest known botanical garden in Europe to the botanist and pharmacologist Antonius Castor, mentioned by Pliny the Elder in the 1st century.
The forerunners of modern botanical gardens are generally regarded as being the medieval monastic physic gardens that originated after the decline of the Roman Empire at the time of Emperor Charlemagne (742–789 CE). These contained a hortus, a garden used mostly for vegetables, and another section set aside for specially labelled medicinal plants; this was called the herbularis or hortus medicus—more generally known as a physic garden—and a viridarium or orchard. Such gardens were given impetus by Charlemagne's Capitulary de Villis, which listed 73 herbs to be used in the physic gardens of his dominions. Many of these had already been introduced to British gardens. Pope Nicholas V set aside part of the Vatican grounds in 1447 for a garden of medicinal plants that were used to promote the teaching of botany, and this was a forerunner to the University gardens at Padua and Pisa established in the 1540s. Certainly, the founding of many early botanic gardens was instigated by members of the medical profession.

=== 16th- and 17th-century European gardens ===