| One
of the world's famous botanical gardens
was established at Kew in a suburb of
London in 1759, but was officially opened
in 1841. Its founder director was Jackson
Hooker (1785-1865). Later his illustrious
son, the famous botanist Dalton Hooker
(1817-1911), gave the garden a fuller
character. The Kew Botanical Garden had
been and is still providing pivotal help
to plant conservation and research and
in establishing botanical gardens in different
parts of the world. The Kew Garden has
provided valuable help in the establishment
of the BANGLADESH NATIONAL HERBARIUM located
at Mirpur in Dhaka city. In Calcutta,
India, the Royal Botanical Garden was
established at Shibpur in 1887. Colonel
Robert Kid of the East India Company was
its pioneer. In the beginning, cultivation
of teak trees was the main goal, but even
before Kid died in 1793 this garden had
300 plant species. Subsequently, celebrities
such as WILLIAM ROXBURGH, Nathaniel Wallich,
George King, David Prain and others turned
the garden into one of subcontinent's
most famous botanical gardens.
The
oldest botanical garden in the region
that comprises present-day Bangladesh
was established on an area of approximately
15 acres in a small town called Jamalpur,
by Iswar Chandra Gupta and called 'CHAITANYA
NURSERY'. But the garden disappeared due
to lack of care and funds soon after the
death of its founder in 1930. One of the
oldest botanical gardens in this part
of the Indian subcontinent was established
in the city of Dhaka in 1909 at the initiative
of the then landlord of the Estate of
Baldah, and the garden came to be known
as the BALDAH GARDEN. Although relatively
small in area, the Baldah Garden is famous
for its floristic splendour and a large
collection of rare and exotic plant species
acquired from over 50 different countries
during its long lifetime of nearly a century.
A
much later addition and a garden much
larger in area is the National Botanical
Garden, which was established in 1961
covering an area of about 84 ha of land
located at Mirpur, about 10 km from Dhaka
city. The garden houses nearly 50,000
species of trees, herbs, and shrubs including
a large collection of aquatic plants.
Many exotic plants have been introduced
in the garden and acclimatised, and are
routinely propagated under the local climatic
conditions. Rare and exotic plant species
found in the garden include Anthurium
(Anthurium crystallinum), Camphor (Cinamomum
camphora), Rabbit Fern (Davallia canariensis),
Dambia (Dombeya spectabilis), white 'Rangan'
(Ixora superba), little Mussanda (Mussaenda
luteola), Amazon Lily (Victoria amazonica),
'Harhjora' (Vitis quadrangularis), African
Tulip (Spathodea campanulata), Sambucuas
(Sambucus nigra), white 'Chandan' (Santalum
album), etc.
The
garden is well-planned and provides learning
and recreational facilities, located adjacent
to the National Zoo. The garden is divided
into 57 sections, and is managed by the
government through the Department of Forestry,
Ministry of Environment and Forests. A
satellite unit of the National Botanical
Garden is the Baldah Garden. There are
in addition smaller botanical gardens
in the city, one of which is the Botanical
Garden of the UNIVERSITY OF DHAKA, located
on the CURZON HALL premises in the heart
of the city. It primarily serves the purpose
of teaching botany to the university students
and enabling scientific studies with plants
by the students and faculty of the university.
All the public universities, outside Dhaka,
also have botanical gardens for scientific
studies. Recently the government of Bangladesh
has decided to establish a new botanical
garden in the Chandranath hills in Chittagong
district. [Zia Uddin Ahmed]
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