Calcutta Botanic Garden
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The Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden, previously known as Indian Botanic Garden and the Calcutta Botanic Garden, is a
botanical garden A botanical garden or botanic gardenThe terms ''botanic'' and ''botanical'' and ''garden'' or ''gardens'' are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word ''botanic'' is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens. is ...
situated in
Shibpur Shibpur is a neighbourhood in Howrah of Howrah district in the Indian States and territories of India, state of West Bengal. It is a part of the area covered by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA). It is well known for being the ...
,
Howrah Howrah (; ; alternatively spelled as Haora) is a city in the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. Howrah is located on the western bank of the Hooghly River, opposite to its twin city of Kolkata. Administratively ...
near
Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...
. They are commonly known as the Calcutta Botanical Garden and previously as the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta. The gardens exhibit a wide variety of rare plants and a total collection of over 12,000 specimens spread over 109
hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), that is, square metres (), and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. ...
s. It is under
Botanical Survey of India Botanical Survey of India (BSI) is a governmental research institution in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. It was founded on 13 February 1890 during British Raj in India and now is under the Government of India Ministry of Environment, Forest an ...
(BSI) of Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India.


History

The gardens were founded in 1787 by Colonel
Robert Kyd Colonel Robert Kyd (1746 – 27 May 1793) was a British army officer stationed in India. He founded the botanical garden at Calcutta in 1787. Life and career Little is known of Kyd's early life. He was born in Scotland at Forfarshire (now Angus) ...
, an army officer of the
East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...
, primarily for the purpose of identifying new plants of commercial value, such as teak, and growing spices for trade. In a written proposal to Governor-General John Macpherson to establish the garden, Kyd stated it was "not for the purpose of collecting rare plants as things of mere curiosity, but for establishing a stock for disseminating such articles as may prove beneficial to the inhabitants as well to the natives of Great Britain, and which ultimately may tend to the extension of the national commerce and riches." India was undergoing mass famine in the 18th century as a result of political turmoil, in addition to severe socio-economic crises. Robert Kyd's Garden proposal was motivated by the desire to increase agricultural revenue in an effort to end food scarcity and promote economic growth. Furthermore, Robert Kyd was accustomed to growing various plants (spices) from the East Indies, which were obtained from East India Company's voyages. The East India Company's Court of Directors supported Kyd's ambitions to establish cinnamon, tobacco, dates, Chinese tea, and coffee in the Garden due to its economic benefits. Tea, for example, was a highly commodified plant that was indispensable to the European economy. The indigenous tea plants of India were not able to be produced in mass quantities, leading to the kidnapping of Chinese gardeners and their tea plants. Chinese tea was first transplanted to the Calcutta Garden and larger tea plantations in Ooty and Nilgiris were established by forcing the people of Assam and Ooty to relocate. Additionally, Cacti such as Nopal were imported from Mexico and established in the Garden to produce textile dyes, an industry which Spain dominated.
Joseph Dalton Hooker Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (30 June 1817 – 10 December 1911) was a British botanist and explorer in the 19th century. He was a founder of geographical botany and Charles Darwin's closest friend. For 20 years he served as director of the Ro ...
says of this Botanical Garden that "Amongst its greatest triumphs may be considered the introduction of the tea-plant from China ... the establishment of the
tea Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of '' Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of south-western China and nor ...
-trade in the
Himalaya The Himalayas, or Himalaya ( ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the Earth's highest peaks, including the highest, Mount Everest. More than 100 pea ...
and
Assam Assam (, , ) is a state in Northeast India, northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra Valley, Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . It is the second largest state in Northeast India, nor ...
is almost entirely the work of the superintendents of the gardens of
Calcutta Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...
and Seharunpore (
Saharanpur Saharanpur is a city and a Municipal corporation (India), municipal corporation in Uttar Pradesh, India. It is also the public administration, administrative headquarters of Saharanpur district. Saharanpur city's name was given after the Sain ...
)." A major change in policy, however, was introduced by the
botanist Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...
William Roxburgh William Roxburgh FRSE FRCPE Linnean Society of London, FLS (3/29 June 1751 – 18 February 1815) was a Scottish people, Scottish surgeon and botanist who worked extensively in India, describing species and working on economic botany. He is known ...
after he became superintendent of the garden in 1793. Roxburgh brought in plants from all over India and developed an extensive
herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant biological specimen, specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sh ...
. This collection of dried plant specimens eventually became the Central National Herbarium of the
Botanical Survey of India Botanical Survey of India (BSI) is a governmental research institution in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. It was founded on 13 February 1890 during British Raj in India and now is under the Government of India Ministry of Environment, Forest an ...
, which comprises 2,500,000 items. During the early years of the garden Joseph Dalton Hooker writes:


Botany and power

The Calcutta Botanic Garden played a significant role in the intersection of botanical science and colonial power in British India. As a center for plant research and cultivation, it became an important tool for scientific advancement and economic development. However, its functions were closely tied to the political and economic goals of the British East India Company. This section explores how the garden's scientific pursuits were intertwined with colonial expansion and governance, highlighting the complex relationship between botany and imperial power in the late 18th and 19th centuries.


Colonial Botanical Network

The Calcutta Botanic Garden was part of a large network of scientific institutions, including the
Singapore Botanic Gardens The Singapore Botanic Gardens is a -year-old tropical garden located at the fringe of the Orchard Road shopping district in Singapore. It is one of three gardens, and the only tropical garden, to be honoured as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Th ...
and
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Botanic Gardens The Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Botanic Gardens is located in Kingstown, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Established in 1765, it is the oldest botanic garden in the Western Hemisphere. It is one of the most visited sites in Saint Vincent a ...
. This network moved plants between gardens and classified them using the
Linnaean system Linnaean taxonomy can mean either of two related concepts: # The particular form of biological classification (taxonomy) set up by Carl Linnaeus, as set forth in his ''Systema Naturae'' (1735) and subsequent works. In the taxonomy of Linnaeus th ...
. It supported scientific research and was also used in colonial expansion.


East India Company's role

The East India Company went through major political changes while developing its botanical work. The
East India Company Act 1784 The East India Company Act 1784 ( 24 Geo. 3. Sess. 2. c. 25), also known as Pitt's India Act, was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain intended to address the shortcomings of the East India Company Act 1772 ( 13 Geo. 3. c. 63) by bringin ...
( 24 Geo. 3. Sess. 2. c. 25) put the company under British Government rule, but it still had governing power. From 1786-1787, it ruled together with the
Nawabs of Bengal The Nawab of Bengal (, ) was the hereditary ruler of Bengal Subah in Mughal India. In the early 18th-century, the Nawab of Bengal was the ''de facto'' independent ruler of the three regions of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa which constitute the mod ...
. As the company gained more control over farming in South Asia, it did a lot of scientific research, including plant surveys. These surveys had two main goals: * To estimate how much money valuable plants could make * To show why the company should be involved in governing Although it was a trading company, the East India Company had powers like a government, including collecting taxes. Its system kept officials separate from farmers. Both Indian and British officials were involved, and the Court of Directors watched over this to try to keep it fair.


Key figures and scientific exploration

More and more plant scientists were able to study new areas in India, collecting lots of information. Important people who worked at the Calcutta Garden were: * William Roxburgh: Made important changes as the garden's leader *
Nathaniel Wallich Nathaniel Wolff Wallich (28 January 1786 – 28 April 1854) was a surgeon and botanist of Danish origin who worked in India, initially in the Danish settlement near Calcutta and later for the Danish East India Company and the British East Indi ...
: Took over after Roxburgh * William Griffith: A well-known plant scientist who did research at the garden


Changes over time

The Calcutta Botanic Garden changed a lot since it was first set up. It made beautiful
garden A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate bot ...
s for people to visit while still studying plants. In the 1970s, the Garden started growing better food plants and other useful plants for India. This shows how the Garden started to focus more on helping the country and its people.


Calcutta Botanic Garden layout

Griffith was instrumental in rearranging the Calcutta Garden in a way that reflected scientific practice at the time, emphasizing the importance of scientific classification in the Garden's appearance. Griffith often criticized the layout of the Botanic Garden under Wallich's control as he believed it did not have the qualities of a traditional European garden. These qualities included "uniformity of design, adaptation of particular parts to particular purposes, including those of science and instruction." The ways in which the Garden was restructured from 1816 to 1846 reflected the demands of a rapidly growing scientific field that fueled European colonial influence. Key features of the 1816 map depict four nurseries, housing for laborers, a farm, and a small Linnaean Garden. The map titled "Plan of the Botanical Gardens December 1845" was developed in 1843 by Griffith and shows key differences compared to the 1816 plan created by Wallich. Major illustrations of natural features such as rivers and trees, which appeared alongside the nurseries, are either not included in the map or depicted using symbols. A large teak plantation replaces the native housing and the landscape is clearly divided into large divisions, indicating that science was used to categorize the natural landscape. An emphasis was placed on labelling plants and categorizing the different areas of the Garden which, according to Griffith, allowed it to be "gardens of science and instruction."


Attractions

The best-known landmark of the garden is
The Great Banyan The Great Banyan is a banyan tree (''Ficus benghalensis'') located in Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden, Shibpur, Howrah, near Kolkata, India. The great banyan tree draws more visitors to the garden than its collection of exo ...
, an enormous
banyan tree A banyan, also spelled banian ( ), is a Ficus, fig that develops accessory trunks from Aerial root#"Stranglers" (prop-root), adjacent prop roots, allowing the tree to spread outwards indefinitely. This distinguishes banyans from other trees ...
(''Ficus benghalensis'') that is reckoned to be the largest tree in the world, at more than 330 metres in circumference. It partially inspired the novel Hothouse by Brian Aldiss. The gardens are also famous for their enormous collections of
orchid Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Orchids are cosmopolitan plants that are found in almost every habitat on Eart ...
s,
bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of mostly evergreen perennial plant, perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily (biology), subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family, in th ...
s, palms, and plants of the screw pine genus (''
Pandanus ''Pandanus'' is a genus of monocots with about 578 accepted species. They are palm-like, dioecious trees and shrubs native to the Old World tropics and subtropics. Common names include pandan, screw palm and screw pine. The genus is classified ...
''). Animals seen inside the Botanic Garden include the Jackal (''
Canis aureus The golden jackal (''Canis aureus''), also called the common jackal, is a wolf-like canid that is native to Eurasia. The golden jackal's coat varies in color from a pale creamy yellow in summer to a dark tawny beige in winter. It is smaller a ...
''), Indian mongoose and the Indian Fox (
Vulpes bengalensis The Bengal fox (''Vulpes bengalensis''), also known as the Indian fox, is a fox endemic to the Indian subcontinent from the Himalayan foothills and Terai of Nepal through southern India, and from southern and eastern Pakistan to eastern India an ...
). Many species of
snake Snakes are elongated limbless reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (). Cladistically squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales much like other members of the group. Many species of snakes have s ...
are also to be found in the garden.


Gallery


References


225 years of Botanic History by Shakunt Pandey
(PDF, 2.0 MB)


External links


Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta Index, ca. 1830Botanical Survey of IndiaENVIS Centre on Floral Diversity
{{Howrah topics Buildings and structures in Howrah Botanical gardens in India Tourist attractions in Howrah district 1787 establishments in British India Tourism in West Bengal