Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden, Botanical garden in Shibpur, Howrah, India

The Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden covers 109 hectares in Shibpur, Howrah, on the west bank of the Hooghly. Its 17 km of paved roads link glasshouses, orchid and bamboo collections, and palm avenues; a straight gravel path between two rows of tall palms leads to a pale stone monument on a stepped base. The garden holds about 17,000 trees of 1,400 species.

Colonel Robert Kyd founded the garden in 1787 to gather and test plants with economic value for the British colonial administration. The site was later renamed after Bengali physicist Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose, who pioneered work in plant physiology.

The garden is popularly called Company Bagh, after the East India Company employees who laid it out. Its herbarium, begun by William Roxburgh and expanded under Nathaniel Wallich, was distributed in 1829 to major European museums and now holds about 2,500,000 dried specimens as the Central National Herbarium. The garden was renamed on 25 June 2009, the 150th birth anniversary of Jagadish Chandra Bose.

Visitors should wear comfortable shoes, as the pathways are long and sometimes uneven, especially during the monsoon season. A full tour typically takes several hours, so arriving early in the day and bringing water is advisable.

The Great Banyan is about 250 years old and covers roughly 1.5 acres, with a circumference of some 330 metres. Its aerial roots drop to the ground and thicken into trunk-like supports, so the original stem is now hard to pick out. The garden also holds mahogany, sal, teak, palms, cinnamon, clove and nutmeg.