The
Singapore Botanic Gardens (
Chinese: 新加坡植物园;
Malay: Taman Botanik
Singapura or Kebun
Botani Singapura) is a 74-hectare[1] (183-acre) botanical garden in
Singapore. It is the only botanic garden in the world that opens from 5 a.m. to 12
midnight every single day of the year, and does not charge an admission fee, except for the
National Orchid Garden. The garden is bordered by
Holland Road and
Napier Road to the south,
Cluny Road to the east, Tyersall
Avenue and Cluny
Park Road to the west and
Bukit Timah Road to the
North. The linear distance between the northern and southern ends is around 2.5 km (1.6 mi).
The first "Botanical and
Experimental Garden" in Singapore was established in 1822 on
Government Hill at
Fort Canning by
Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of modern Singapore and a keen naturalist.
The Garden's main task was to evaluate for cultivation crops which were of potential economic importance, including those yielding fruits, vegetables, spices and other raw materials. This first Garden closed in 1829.
It was not until 30 years later that the present Singapore Botanic Gardens began in 1859, when the
Agri Horticultural Society was granted 32 hectares of land in Tanglin by the colonial government, which had obtained it from the merchant
Hoo Ah Kay, known as
Whampoa, in exchange for land at
Boat Quay.
Laurence Niven was hired as superintendent and landscape designer to turn what were essentially overgrown plantations and a tangle of virgin rainforest into a public park. The layout of the
Gardens as it is today is largely based on
Niven's design. The Agri Horticultural Society, however, ran out of funds and, in 1874, the colonial government took over the management of the Gardens.
The first rubber seedlings came to the gardens from Kew in 1877. A naturalist,
Henry Nicholas Ridley, or Mad
Ridley as he was known, became director of the gardens in
1888 and spearheaded rubber cultivation.
Successful in his experiments with rubber planting, Ridley convinced planters across
Malaya to adopt his methods. The results were astounding; Malaya became the world's number one producer and exporter of natural rubber.[2]
Another achievement was the pioneering of orchid hybridisation by
Professor Eric Holttum, director of the Gardens from 1925 to 1949. His techniques led to Singapore being one of the world's top centres of commercial orchid growing.
Today it also has the largest collection of tropical plant specimens.
During the
Japanese occupation of Singapore from
1942 to
1945, Hidezo Tanakadate (田中館秀三), a professor of geology from
Tohoku Imperial University, took over control of the Singapore Botanic Gardens and the
Raffles Museum.
At the beginning of the occupation, he ensured that no looting occurred in the Gardens and the
Museum. Both institutions continued to
function as scientific institutions. Holttum and
Edred John Henry Corner were interned in the Gardens and instructed to continue their horticultural work.
The Gardens was also renamed as Shōnan
Botanic Gardens (昭南植物園).
Later that year, Dr.
Kwan Koriba (郡場寛), a retired professor of botany from the
Imperial University of Tokyo, arrived as
Director of the Gardens, a post he held until the end of the war.
After the war, the Gardens was handed back to the control of the
British.
Murray Ross Henderson, curator of the Herbarium before the war, succeeded Holttum as director from 1949 to 1954.
Eventually the Gardens played an important role during the "greening Singapore" campaign and
Garden City campaign during the early independence years.
- published: 13 Feb 2013
- views: 7689