The Lae Botanic Gardens are located in Bumneng, Eriku and Lae City in the

Morobe Province Morobe is a province on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea. The provincial capital and largest city is Lae. The province covers 33,705 km2, with a population of 674,810 (2011 census), and since the division of Southern Highlands Province ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

. Within this location is the Papua New Guinea Forest Research Unit, the Papua New Guinea National

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 ...

and the

Lae War Cemetery The Lae War Cemetery, established in 1944, is located adjacent to the Botanical Gardens in the centre of the city of Lae, the capital of Morobe Province, in Papua New Guinea. The cemetery is managed by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. I ...

Description

The Lae Botanic Gardens occupies 38 hectares. The garden mostly consists of natural lowland rain forest with creeks running through. It also contains greenhouses for special

Orchidaceae Orchids are plants that belong to the family (biology), family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Orchids are cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan plants that ...

and

Araceae The Araceae are a family of monocotyledonous flowering plants in which flowers are borne on a type of inflorescence called a spadix. The spadix is usually accompanied by, and sometimes partially enclosed in, a spathe (or leaf-like bract). Also ...

collections. The gardens are administered by the Papua New Guinea Forest Research Institute and have approximately 1500 - 2000 plant species. The landscape is dominated my many large buttressed trees which are densely covered by

Epiphytes An epiphyte is a plant or plant-like organism that grows on the surface of another plant and derives its moisture and nutrients from the air, rain, water (in marine environments) or from debris accumulating around it. The plants on which epiphyt ...

and climbers. Forestrydepartment

Papua New Guinea Forest Research Institute

The Forest Research Institute is located on Huon Road in the grounds of the Botanical Gardens. The building was donated by the Government of Japan as a symbol of friendship and cooperation in 1989 .The Forest Research Institute is a government agency that conducts research on the sustainable management and wise resource utilization of forest resources. The Forest Research Institute also provides a scientific basis for the management of PNG’s forest resources through research activities.

Papua New Guinea National Herbarium

The

was established in the 1940s and is the largest plant specimen collection in Papua New Guinea with about 300,000 specimens including 2335 type specimens. There are 100,000 spirit collections. The Herbarium holds a representative plant collection from the neighboring regions such as the

Indonesian provinces Provinces are the first-level administrative divisions of Indonesia. They were formerly called first-level provincial regions (), before the Reform era. Provinces have a local government, consisting of a governor () and a regional legislativ ...

, the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands, also known simply as the Solomons,John Prados, ''Islands of Destiny'', Dutton Caliber, 2012, p,20 and passim is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 1000 smaller islands in Melanesia, part of Oceania, t ...

, Western

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

and Tropical

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

The Herbarium also holds collections of a number of important collectors including

Leonard John Brass Leonard John Brass (17 May 1900 – 29 August 1971) was an Australian and American botanist, botanical collector and explorer. Early life Brass was born at Toowoomba, Queensland. He was trained at the Queensland Herbarium. Career Brass coll ...

Lyndley Craven Lyndley Alan Craven (3 September 1945 – 11 July 2014) was a botanist who became the Principal Research Scientist of the Australian National Herbarium. Lyndley ("Lyn") Craven worked for the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organ ...

, J R Croft, Ruurd Dirk Hoogland, Andrée Millar, R Pullen, J C Saunders,

Richard Schodde Richard Schodde, Order of Australia, OAM (born 23 September 1936) is an Australian botany, botanist and ornithology, ornithologist. Schodde studied at the University of Adelaide, where he received a Bachelor of Science, BSc (Hons) in 1960 and a ...

Wayne Takeuchi Wayne may refer to: People with the given name and surname * Wayne (given name) * Wayne (surname) Geographical Places with name ''Wayne'' may take their name from a person with that surname; the most famous such person was Gen. "Mad" Antho ...

and J S Womersley. The herbarium ranks third in size in South East Asia. In recent years the Herbarium has been involved in data-basing and digitizing its collections. The Herbarium is collaborating with the National Herbarium of NSW on the project plants of Papua New Guinea.

Notes

References

External links

Old photos of Botanical Gardens
{{authority control Botanical research institutes Botanical gardens in Papua New Guinea Lae Herbaria in Oceania