Durban Botanic Gardens

The Botanical Gardens Durban (English: Durban Botanic Gardens, short DBG ) is a public garden in South Africa. Your emergence dates back to two agricultural experiment stations for crops. The owned by the city of Durban systems serve the education, research and recreation.

Survey

The main collection areas form cycads, palms, orchids and bromeliads. In addition, here are over 80 rare trees from different regions of the world that are over 100 years old and therefore are among the most valuable trees within this botanical institution. The Arboretum has trees from Africa, Asia and America.

The Durban Botanic Gardens are the oldest botanical institution on the African continent and also the oldest publicly accessible institution in Durban.

Location

The Botanical Gardens are located northwest of the city of Durban Durban Central part of the Botanic Gardens Road, about two kilometers from the city center.

Not far from the botanical plant is the herbal market of Warwick Triangle, one of the largest traditional trade places for plants and plant products in the country.

History of the Collections

As a knock-on effect of the restructured and expanded in the 1840s Kew Gardens in London and there established a greenhouse with tropical plants, botanical gardens, which talked in search of crops and of scientific interest to botanists at Kew contacts took place around the world. Members of the Natal Agriculture and Horticultural Society sought east around 1848 by the then city terrain for a suitable area to build on it an experimental garden.

The earliest used for that purpose areas were located in a flat area near the Umgeni River at the foothills of the Berea ridge near the present-day Quarry Road. Here Charles Johnston began in December 1849 with the cultivation of crops. He is regarded as the first curator of botany oriented plantations in Durban.

A previously active in the Bath Botanical Gardens in Jamaica Scot, Mark mosquitoes, in the early 1850s came to Durban. This began on land that lay near the former city and the present location represent, with the planting of arable crops. On 25 acres, which were later supplemented by a further 25, he succeeded pineapple, cinchona, coffee, rubber, tea, sugar cane and win successfully.

The development of the Botanic Gardens was coined in the late 19th and early 20th century, particularly by the work of the botanist John Medley Wood, who worked here 1882-1913 as a curator, the first description of the flora of Natal ( A handbook to the flora of Natal, 1907) and wrote Herbarium docked. In the 1890s, the Durban Botanic Gardens included with their Colonial Herbarium of the largest botanical gardens in the British Empire. For his services to him the University of Cape Town conferred an honorary doctorate in 1913. In the same year the plant and equipment of the Durban Botanic Society in the administration of the city of Durban over. The extensive herbaria were state property of the then Union of South Africa.

The Palm collection consists of about 130 species of 58 genera together. In essence, it is based on a linear planting along a main road, which was started in 1889 as " Palmenweg ". The Palmetum originated in 1977 in the vicinity of a pond.

The orchid collection was founded by Ernest Thorp, who still began in 1931 during his studies with the collection. In 1945 he left it to the botanical collections of Durban. Some native orchid collectors promoted the development of this collection. She grew up in this manner until 1960 considerably. For their better presentation was opened in 1962 the Ernest Thorp Orchid House.

Education

For schools courses are offered on the basis of their curriculum. A public lecture series is dedicated to a wide range of topics. Information will be offered in favor of a permaculture diet and thematic workshops organized. The library was opened in 1990 ( William Poulton Library) maintains a pool ready with horticultural literature.

The Durban Botanic Gardens Trust to pay a mining company to the preservation and to the development of the facility. The John Medley -Wood Medal is awarded for outstanding achievements in the field of horticulture and botany in KwaZulu -Natal by the Durban Botanic Gardens Trust.

Research

As part of the research cooperation, close relationships with the KZN Herbarium of the University of KwaZulu- Natal and the Durban University of Technology developed.

Visitor

For reception of the visitors is the Durban Botanic Gardens Visitors' Centre is available. Here you will find an information office, a shop, the garden management and seminar rooms. The Botanical Gardens Durban recorded annually about 500,000 guests.