Bogor Botanical Gardens
The Bogor Botanical Gardens (Indonesian: Kebun Raya Bogor) is a botanical garden located in Bogor, Indonesia, 60 km south of central Jakarta. It is currently operated by Indonesian Institute of Sciences (Indonesian: Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia or LIPI). The garden is located in the city center and adjoin the presidential palace compound of Istana Bogor. It covers an area of 87 hectares (210 acres) and contains 13,983 different kinds of trees and plants of various origin. The geographic position of Bogor means it rains almost daily, even in the dry season. This makes the garden an advantageous location for the cultivation of tropical plants.
Founded in 1817 by the order of the government of the Dutch East Indies, the garden thrived under the leadership of many renowned botanists including Johannes Elias Teijsmann, Rudolph Herman Christiaan Carel Scheffer, and Melchior Treub. Since its foundation, the Bogor botanical garden has served as a major research center for agriculture and horticulture. It is the oldest botanical garden in Southeast Asia.[1][citation needed]
The area that is now Bogor Botanical Gardens was part of the samida (man-made forest) that was established at least around the era when Sri Baduga Maharaja (Prabu Siliwangi, 1474–1513) ruled the Sunda Kingdom, as written in the Batutulis inscription. This forest was created to protect seeds of rare trees.[2] The forest remained neglected after the Sundanese kingdom was destroyed in the 16th century. In 1744 the Dutch East India Company established a garden and mansion at the site of the present botanical gardens in Buitenzorg (now known as Bogor).
After the successful British invasion of Java in 1811, Stamford Raffles was appointed as the island's lieutenant-governor, and he took Buitenzorg Palace as his residence. During his rule in the palace, he had the garden re-landscaped into English-style garden.[3] His wife, Olivia Mariamne Raffles, died in Buitenzorg on November 26, 1814, and was buried in Batavia. A memorial monument was built in the garden, as a commemoration for her.[4]
When the Anglo-Dutch Treaty came into effect, the Netherlands in 1816 sent a ship with officials to resume control of the colony. Among those on board was the German-born botanist Caspar Georg Carl Reinwardt, who was appointed as head of agriculture, arts and science of the colony. A year later he proposed the establishment of a botanical garden, a move which was supported by Governor-General Van der Capellen. The garden was officially founded on May 18, 1817, next to the palace grounds through a collaboration with two botanists, William Kent from Holland and James Hooper from Kew.[5] The garden was established as 's Lands Plantentuin ('National Botanical Garden').[6] He became its first director for five years and gathered plants and seeds of economic potential from all over the archipelago for cultivation. Much of his taxonomic work was catalogued by his predecessor Carl Ludwig Blume in 1823, who recorded 914 plants in the garden.[5][7]
In 1830, Johannes Elias Teijsmann, a Dutch botanist, became curator of Bogor Botanic Garden and spent more than 50 years developing the garden. Seven years later Justus Carl Hasskarl was appointed as his assistant curator and convinced the director to re-arrange the plantings in the garden by taxonomic families. Hasskarl proposed starting a library, which opened in 1842 as the Bibliotheca Bogoriensis, and constructed a separate building for the Herbarium Bogoriense, which opened in 1844.[8] J. Teijsmann wrote the second catalogue of plants which listed more than 2800 species by 1844. He also has the garden significantly expanded in 1852, with a 120 hectares (300 acres) new garden branch laid down near the mountainous town of Cibodas.[9][10]
