Adelaide Botanic Garden, Botanical garden in Adelaide, Australia.
Adelaide Botanic Garden is a 51-hectare botanical garden in South Australia featuring diverse plant collections, Victorian glasshouses, and formal garden sections. The grounds display plants from around the world alongside native Australian species arranged along thoughtfully designed pathways.
Colonel William Light first reserved a River Torrens ait in the West Parklands for a botanical garden, but flooding forced its abandonment. In 1839 John Bailey made a third attempt on the Torrens's northern bank without funding. In 1854 the Agricultural and Horticultural Society and George William Francis secured the present site, approved in January 1855; Francis was appointed superintendent that year and the garden opened on 4 October 1857.
The garden's name honours its purpose rather than a person. Its first director, George William Francis, lectured in the rustic temple he built in 1864, modelled on the Museum of Economic Botany at Kew. His successor Moritz Richard Schomburgk created a water-lily house in 1867, where the continent's only Victoria regia was long grown; the giant waterlily's botanical name comes from him.
The garden is easily walkable and organized into specialized areas for different interests, from drought-resistant plants to orchids and roses. Visitors can explore sections based on their preferences and the time they have available.
The Bicentennial Conservatory opened in 1988, marking Australia's bicentenary, and was built to display rainforest flora from northern Australia and the South Pacific. Its glasshouse sits among much older structures: the Palm House, imported from Bremen in 1875, is the second-oldest glasshouse in Australia.
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