---
title: "Botanical garden"
chunk: 1/5
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"
---

A botanical garden or botanic garden is a garden with a documented collection of living plants for the purpose of scientific research, conservation, display, and education. Plants in larger gardens are often labelled with their botanical names and additional information. It may contain specialist plant collections such as cacti and other succulent plants, herb gardens, or plants from particular parts of the world. There may be glasshouses or shadehouses with special collections such as tropical plants, alpine plants, or other exotic plants that are not native to the local region.
Most are at least partly open to the public, and may offer guided tours, public programming such as workshops, courses, educational displays, art exhibitions, book rooms, open-air theatrical and musical performances, and other entertainment.

Botanical gardens are often run by universities or other scientific research organizations, and usually have associated herbaria and research programmes in plant taxonomy or some other aspect of botanical science.  In principle, their role is to maintain documented collections of living plants for the purposes of scientific research, conservation, display, and education, although this will depend on the resources available and the special interests pursued at each particular garden. The staff will normally include botanists as well as gardeners.
Many botanical gardens offer diploma or certificate programs in horticulture, botany and taxonomy. There are many internship opportunities offered to aspiring horticulturists, as well as opportunities for students and researchers to use the collection for their studies.

== Definitions ==

The New Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening (1999) points out that among the various kinds of organizations known as botanical gardens, there are many that are in modern times public gardens with little scientific activity. It cited a tighter definition published by the World Wildlife Fund and IUCN when launching the "Botanic Gardens Conservation Strategy" in 1989: "A botanic garden is a garden containing scientifically ordered and maintained collections of plants, usually documented and labelled, and open to the public for the purposes of recreation, education and research."
This has been refined by Botanic Gardens Conservation International to the following definition which "encompasses the spirit of a true botanic garden": "A botanic garden is an institution holding documented collections of living plants for the purposes of scientific research, conservation, display and education."
The following definition was produced by staff of the Liberty Hyde Bailey Hortorium of Cornell University in 1976. It covers in some detail the many functions and activities generally associated with botanical gardens:

A botanical garden is a controlled and staffed institution for the maintenance of a living collection of plants under scientific management for purposes of education and research, together with such libraries, herbaria, laboratories, and museums as are essential to its particular undertakings. Each botanical garden naturally develops its own special fields of interests depending on its personnel, location, extent, available funds, and the terms of its charter. It may include greenhouses, test grounds, an herbarium, an arboretum, and other departments. It maintains a scientific as well as a horticultural staff, and publication is one of its major modes of expression.
This broad outline is then expanded:

The botanic garden may be an independent institution, a governmental operation, or affiliated to a college or university. If a department of an educational institution, it may be related to a teaching program. In any case, it exists for scientific ends and is not to be restricted or diverted by other demands. It is not merely a landscaped or ornamental garden, although it may be artistic, nor is it an experiment station or yet a park with labels on the plants. The essential element is the intention of the enterprise, which is the acquisition and dissemination of botanical knowledge.

=== Role and functions ===
All botanical gardens have their own special interests. In a paper on the role of botanical gardens, Ferdinand von Mueller (1825–1896), the director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne (1852–1873), stated, "in all cases the objects [of a botanical garden] must be mainly scientific and predominantly instructive". He detailed many of the objectives being pursued by the world's botanical gardens in the middle of the 19th century, when European gardens were at their height. Many of these are listed below to give a sense of the scope of botanical gardens' activities at that time, and the ways in which they differed from parks or what he called "public pleasure gardens":

Historically, botanical gardens have responded to the interests and values of the day. If a single function were to be chosen from the early literature on botanical gardens, it would be their scientific endeavour and, flowing from this, their instructional value. In their formative years, botanical gardens were gardens for physicians and botanists, but they became more associated with ornamental horticulture and the needs of the general public. The scientific reputation of a botanical garden is judged by the publications coming out of herbaria and similar facilities, not by its living collections. Their focus has been on creating an awareness of the threat to the Earth's ecosystems from human populations and the consequent need for biological and physical resources. Botanical gardens provide an excellent medium for communication between the world of botanical science and the general public. Education programs can help the public develop greater environmental awareness by understanding the meaning and importance of ideas like conservation and sustainability.

=== Worldwide network ===