The Royal Botanical Gardens in Peradeniya
The Gardens date back to the Kandyan
kingdom, when they were used as royal pleasure grounds. However, it was
soon after the British seized the Kandyan Kingdom that they were
established in 1821; primarily to introduce coffee trees and various other tropical plants
of economic importance to the region. Even after it took on a more
botanical emphasis in the 1840s, the garden remained a center for
horticultural activities. Under the directorship of the botanist George
H.K. Thwaites, the garden played a pivotal role in establishing the
country’s flourishing tea industry in the late 1870s. Thwaites also
brought in and cultivated the Brazilian rubber tree, which became a crop
producer vital to Sri Lanka’s economy. The botanical collection has
developed into one of the finest in the region.
The Classical Avenue of Palms is located in this Garden. One tree with a
significant history is the Cannon ball Tree planted by King George V of
the United Kingdom and Queen Mary in 1901. The tree is bent with its
fruits which looks like Cannon Ball, which is how it came to be named.
It also used during the Second World War by Lord Louis Mountbatten, the
supreme commander of the allied forces in the South Asia as the
headquarters of the South East Asia Command.
The total area of the botanical garden is 147 acres and Mahaweli Ganga is a spectacular display of it. It includes more than 300 varieties of orchids, spices, medicinal plants and palm trees and it is renowned for its collection of a variety of orchids.
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