Botanic Garden. While ordinary gardens are concerned with utility or beauty only, the botanic garden has for its primary aim the promotion of botanical science, and is thus necessarily of comparatively modern origin (see BOTANY). Like the science itself, the botanic garden owes its birth to the needs of pharmacy; thus at the earliest European school of medicine, that of Salerno, we find record in 1309 of the medical garden of Matthæus Sylvaticus; while in 1333 a similar garden was established by the Republic of Venice. These private and public examples seem to have been more or less widely followed, yet the botanic garden in the modern sense is usually dated from a private one founded at Padua (between 1525 and 1533), from the public one of Pisa, established by Cosmo de' Medici in 1544, or from that of Padua, which dates from the following year, and was greatly enriched by its founders, the Signiory of Venice. The other great Italian cities soon followed this example, and a botanic garden was also founded at the university of Leyden in 1577, and at the universities of Montpellier, Leipzig, Breslau, and Heidelberg before the end of the century. At Paris, too, a royal garden was founded in 1597, but at first, it is said, only with the petty aim of varying the bouquets worn at court: in 1626, however, its scientific purposes were defined; in 1635 chairs of Botany and Pharmacology were founded, and it soon became famous as the Jardin des Plantes. The establishment of physic or botanic gardens continued during the 17th century, and those of Oxford (1632) Chelsea (1677), and Edinburgh (1680) may be particularly noted. A further impetus was given by the popularisation of botany in the last century by Linnæus, and by the consequently increased importance of the subject as a branch of academic education: most European universities, including all German ones, have now their botanic gardens, as well as many purely commercial cities. The leading American universities and cities have also followed suit, the gardens of Philadelphia, New York, and Cambridge being especially well known. Similar institutions, usually of more definite economic aim, have been founded by the principal governments in their colonial dominions; those of Buitenzorg in Java, of Calcutta, and of Paradenya in Ceylon, may be mentioned as of special importance. While almost every botanic garden boasts its own peculiar excellence, the comparatively modern establishment of Kew, founded in 1760, is reckoned the largest, richest, and most fully organised (except for teaching purposes) in the world; those of Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and Edinburgh may also be mentioned as each in certain respects claiming in the foremost rank.
The mode of arrangement of botanic gardens varies infinitely in detail, yet more or less faithfully reflects the state of scientific knowledge and of horticultural and general taste at the period of its foundation or reconstruction; hence the advantage of the more modern gardens. The Linnean system of arrangement has of course now been replaced by the natural, but in their mode of expressing this no two gardens agree; in some the principle of arranging plants according to their geographical distribution is also largely followed, while economic or medical interests have had a very variable share. The primeval and convenient separation of plants as trees, shrubs, perennial herbs, and annuals has also to be largely attended to; while the very varied origin of the collection, from all countries and climates, necessitates their disposition as nearly as possible in corresponding artificial climates and soils; and thus not only the rocky and alpine garden, the bog garden, and the pond are required beside the ordinary garden beds, but a series of greenhouses and hot-houses of different temperatures and sizes; the latter culminating in the gigantic palm-house. The best garden may be taken as that which best combines all these advantages, and reconciles them with the respective claims of simplicity and beauty; yet no garden can be considered as complete without its accompanying hortus siccus or herbarium, its museum, and its library, as well as its laboratories for research, and its lecture-rooms for teaching. It is concerned with the introduction of new plants and the exportation of others to new countries, and thus requires a colonial and international organisation of exchanges and correspondence. It forms a natural centre for the preparation of scientific travellers and the training of gardeners, arboriculturists, nurserymen, and florists; while it owes services both to medical and general education.
While for the full performance of all these varied functions the resources of a great botanic garden are never too ample, it is important to note in conclusion that many of these purposes, and particularly the educational one, can be largely reached upon an incomparably smaller scale. A 'type botanic garden,' illustrating all the more important natural orders of temperate climates, and therefore containing examples of the majority of the plants most important from the point of view alike of botany and medicine, of history, literature, and economics, can be made at altogether trifling expense, and within the narrowest limits. The establishment of such small popular gardens has been followed by the most beneficial results, and their adoption by public and private schools and other institutions is happily in active progress (see BOTANY). For the literature of botanic gardens, see Jackson's Guide to the Literature of Botany, pp. 405-453. On Type Botanic Gardens, see Trans. Bot. Soc. Edin. (1884).