Australian National Botanic Gardens

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Australian National Botanic Gardens

The Australian National Botanic Gardens (ANBG) are located in Canberra

Canberra

Department of the Environment and Heritage (Australia)

The Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts , formerly the Department of the Environment and Water Resources , is a department of the Australian Politics of Australia....
.

The botanic gardens

Botanical garden

Botanical gardens grow a wide variety of plants primarily to categorize and document for scientific purposes. Botanists and horticulturalists tend the flora and maintain the garden's library and herbarium of dried and documented plant material....
are a collection of native Australian flora, the mission of the ANBG is to study and promote Australia's flora.

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History of the Gardens

When Canberra

Canberra

Canberra is the List of Australian capital cities of Australia. With a population of over 340,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth largest Australian city overall....
was being planned in the 1930s the establishment of the gardens was recommended in a report in 1933 by the Advisory Council of Federal Capital Territory. In 1935 The Dickson Report set forth a framework for their development. A large site for the gardens was set aside on Black Mountain

Black Mountain (Australian Capital Territory)

Black Mountain is situated close to the central business district of Australia's capital city Canberra. Like all major hills in Canberra it is protected from development by the Canberra Nature Park....
. In September 1949 the Ceremonial planting of first tree

TREE

TREE was a Boston hardcore punk band formed in the summer of 1990. They were active in the Boston music scene until disbanding in 2002....
s by Prime Minister Ben Chifley

Ben Chifley

Joseph Benedict Chifley , Australian politician and 16th Prime Minister of Australia, was one of Australia's most influential Prime Ministers. Among his government's accomplishments were the post-war immigration scheme under Arthur Calwell, the establishment of Australian citizenship in 1949, the Snowy Mountains Scheme, the national airline T...
and Director of Kew Gardens

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, usually referred to simply as Kew Gardens, are extensive gardens and Greenhouses between Richmond, London and Kew in southwest London, England....
, Sir Edward Salisbury took place. Development of the site, facilities and collection progressed and the Gardens were officially opened in October 1970 by Prime Minister John Gorton

John Gorton

Sir John Grey Gorton, Order of St Michael and St George, Order of Australia, Order of the Companions of Honour , Australian politician, was the 19th Prime Minister of Australia....
.

The Gardens has tenure over 90 hectare

Hectare

A hectare is a unit of area equal to , or one square hectometre , and commonly used for surveying.The hectare is used in most countries around the world, especially in domains concerned with land ownership, land planning, and land management, including law , agriculture, forestry, and town planning....
s on Black Mountain. About 40 hectares are currently developed as the Botanic Gardens. Plans for the development of the remaining land are on hold until funds are available.

The collection

The gardens is organised in thematic sections, plants are grouped by shared taxonomy

Taxonomy

Taxonomy is the practice and science of classification. The word comes from the Greek language ', taxis and ', nomos .Taxonomies, or taxonomic schemes, are composed of taxonomic units known as taxa , or kinds of things that are arranged frequently in a hierarchical structure....
or are presented in ecological groupings that exist in nature. More than 5500 species are cultivated. Displays include:

Rainforest
Rainforest

Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions setting minimum normal annual rainfall between 1750?2000 mm . The monsoon trough, alternately known as the intertropical convergence zone, plays a significant role in creating Earth's tropical rain forests....
Gully, featuring plants for the rainforests of Eastern Australia.
Rock Garden, a display of plants which occur in habitats from the desert to alpine areas.
Sydney Region Flora, a display of the divers flora endemic to the sandstone formations of the Sydney
Sydney

Sydney is the List of cities in Australia by population in Australia, with a metropolitan area population of approximately 4.34 million . It is the List of Australian capital cities of New South Wales, and was the site of the first British Empire colony in Australia....
basin.
Mallee
Mallee

Mallee may refer to:* Mallee , the habit of woody plants that grow with multiple stems from underground lignotubers* Mallee , a biogeographic region in southern Western Australia...
Plants, the malees in the name give to multi-stemmed eucalypts and the shrubs and grasses associated with them.
Banksia
Banksia

Banksia is a genus of around 170 species in the plant family Proteaceae. Iconic Australian wildflower and popular garden plants, they are easily recognised by their characteristic flower spikes and fruiting "cones" and heads, and can vary from prostrate woody shrubs to trees up to 30 metres tall....
s, waratah
Waratah

Waratah is a genus of five species of large shrubs or small trees in the Proteaceae, native to southeastern Australia, from New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania....
s and grevillea
Grevillea

Grevillea is a diverse genus of about 360 species of evergreen flowering plants in the protea family Proteaceae, native to Australia, New Guinea, New Caledonia, and Sulawesi....
s (family Proteaceae
Proteaceae

Proteaceae is a family of flowering plants. Mainly restricted to the Southern Hemisphere, it is a fairly large family, with around 80 genus but fewer than 2000 species....
)
Callistemon, Leptospermum
Leptospermum

Leptospermum is a genus of about 80-86 species of plants in the myrtle family Myrtaceae. Most species are endemic to Australia, with the greatest diversity in the south of the continent; but one species extends to New Zealand, another to Malaysia, and Leptospermum recurvum is endemic to Malaysia....
and Melaleuca
Melaleuca

Melaleuca is a genus of plants in the myrtle family Myrtaceae. There are well over 200 recognized species, most of which are endemic to Australia....
(family Myrtaceae
Myrtaceae

The Myrtaceae or Myrtle family are a family of dicotyledon plants, placed within the order Myrtales. Myrtus, clove, guava, feijoa, allspice, and eucalyptus belong here....
)
The Eucalypt
Eucalypt

Eucalypts are woody plants belonging to three closely related genera:Eucalyptus, Corymbia and Angophora.In 1995 new evidence, largely genetic, indicated that some prominent Eucalyptus species were actually more closely related to Angophora than to the other eucalypts; they were split off into the new genus Corymbia....
Lawn, features about one fifth of Australian eucalypt species.
Wattles (Genus Acacia
Acacia

Acacia is a genus of shrubs and trees belonging to the subfamily Mimosoideae of the family Fabaceae, first described in Africa by the Sweden botanist Carolus Linnaeus in 1773....
)

Research at the Gardens

The Australian National Herbarium

Herbarium

In botany, a herbarium is a collection of preserved plant specimens. These specimens may be whole plants or plant parts: these will usually be in a dried form, mounted on a sheet, but depending upon the material may also be kept in alcohol or other preservative....
is held on site at the National Botanic Gardens. The Herbarium houses the largest collection of pressed, dried plant specimens in Australia. The Herbarium is operated jointly with the CSIRO as part of a joint research facility, the Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research. It is not open to the public. The Australian National Herbarium is participating in the creation of Australia's Virtual Herbarium (AVH), a web based record of botanical information, including six million specimen records displaying geographic distribution, images, descriptive text and identification tools.

The Gardens manages several large plant database

Database

A database is a structured collection of records or data that is stored in a computer system. The structure is achieved by organizing the data according to a database model....
s, including What's its Name? is a simple point of access to the more complex 'Australian Plant Name Index' APNI listing all the scientific names ever used for Australia's plants. A large collection of photograph

Photograph

A photograph is an created by light falling on a light-sensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic imager such as a Charge-coupled device or a Complementary metal?oxide?semiconductor chip....
s is also available.

The Gardens' library has significant collections of botanical books, journals, CD-ROMs and maps. The library is open to students and the public by appointment.

Australian National Botanic Gardens

History of the Gardens

The collection

Research at the Gardens

External links