Missouri Botanical Garden | |
A view of Seiwa-en, the largest Japanese garden in North America | |
Location | St. Louis, Missouri |
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Coordinates | 38°36′45″N90°15′35″W / 38.61250°N 90.25972°W Coordinates: 38°36′45″N90°15′35″W / 38.61250°N 90.25972°W |
Built | 1859 |
Architect | Multiple |
Architectural style | Late Victorian |
NRHP reference No. | 71001065 [1] |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | November 19, 1971 |
Designated NHLD | December 8, 1976 [2] |
The Missouri Botanical Garden is a botanical garden located at 4344 Shaw Boulevard in St. Louis, Missouri. It is also known informally as Shaw's Garden for founder and philanthropist Henry Shaw. Its herbarium, with more than 6.6 million specimens, [3] is the second largest in North America, behind that of the New York Botanical Garden. The Index Herbariorum code assigned to the herbarium is MO [4] and it is used when citing housed specimens.
The land that is currently the Missouri Botanical Garden was previously the land of businessman Henry Shaw.
Founded in 1859, the Missouri Botanical Garden is one of the oldest botanical institutions in the United States and a National Historic Landmark. It is also listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
In 1983, the botanical garden was added as the fourth subdistrict of the Metropolitan Zoological Park and Museum District.
The garden is a center for botanical research and science education of international repute, as well as an oasis in the city of St. Louis, with 79 acres (32 ha) of horticultural display. It includes a 14-acre (5.7 ha) Japanese strolling garden named Seiwa-en; the Climatron geodesic dome conservatory; a children's garden, including a pioneer village; a playground; a fountain area and a water locking system, somewhat similar to the locking system at the Panama Canal; an Osage camp; and Henry Shaw's original 1850 estate home. It is adjacent to Tower Grove Park, another of Shaw's legacies. [5]
For part of 2006, the Missouri Botanical Garden featured "Glass in the Garden", with glass sculptures by Dale Chihuly placed throughout the garden. Four pieces were purchased to remain at the gardens. In 2008 sculptures of the French artist Niki de Saint Phalle were placed throughout the garden. In 2009, the 150th anniversary of the garden was celebrated, including a floral clock display.
After 40 years of service to the garden, Dr. Peter Raven retired from his presidential post on September 1, 2010. Dr. Peter Wyse Jackson replaced him as President. [6]
The garden is a place for many annual cultural festivals, such as the Japanese Festival and the Chinese Culture Days by the St. Louis Chinese Culture Days Committee. [7] During this time, there are showcases of the culture's botanics as well as cultural arts, crafts, music and food. The Japanese Festival features sumo wrestling, taiko drumming, koma-mawashi top spinning, and kimono fashion shows. The garden is known for its bonsai growing, which can be seen all year round but is highlighted during the multiple Asian festivals.
Major garden features include:
Douglas Trumbull, the director of the 1972 science fiction classic film Silent Running , stated that the geodesic domes on the spaceship Valley Forge were based on the Missouri Botanical Garden's Climatron dome. [8]
Missouri Botanical Garden also operates the Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House in Chesterfield. The Butterfly House includes an 8,000-square-foot (740 m2) indoor butterfly conservatory as well as an outdoor butterfly garden.
The EarthWays Center is a group at the Missouri Botanical Garden that provides resources on and educates the public about green practices, renewable energy, energy efficiency, and other sustainability matters. [9]
The Shaw Nature Reserve was started by the Missouri Botanical Garden in 1925 as a place to store plants away from the pollution of the city. The air in St. Louis later cleared up, and the reserve has continued to be open to the public for enjoyment, research, and education ever since. The 2,400-acre (9.7 km2) reserve is located in Gray Summit, Missouri, 35 miles (56 km) away from the city. [10]
The Plant List is an Internet encyclopedia project to compile a comprehensive list of botanical nomenclature, created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and the Missouri Botanical Garden. [11] The Plant List has 1,040,426 scientific plant names of species rank, of which 298,900 are accepted species names. In addition, the list has 620 plant families and 16,167 plant genera. [12]
In September 2017 the Missouri Botanical Garden teamed up with the St. Louis Zoo and Washington University in St. Louis in a conservation effort known as the Living Earth Collaborative. [13] The collaborative, run by Washington University scientist Jonathan Losos, seeks to promote further understanding of the ways humans can help to preserve the varied natural environments that allow plants, animals and microbes to survive and thrive. [14]
Monsanto had donated $10 million to the Missouri Botanical Garden since the 1970s, which named its 1998 plant science facility the "Monsanto Center". [15] The center has since been renamed to the "Bayer Center" following Monsanto's acquisition by Bayer. [16]
A botanical garden or botanic garden is a garden dedicated to the collection, cultivation, preservation and display of an especially wide range of plants, which are typically labelled with their botanical names. It may contain specialist plant collections such as cacti and other succulent plants, herb gardens, plants from particular parts of the world, and so on; there may be greenhouses, shadehouses, again with special collections such as tropical plants, alpine plants, or other exotic plants. Most are at least partly open to the public, and may offer guided tours, educational displays, art exhibitions, book rooms, open-air theatrical and musical performances, and other entertainment.
The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is a botanical garden at Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York City. Established in 1891, it is located on a 250-acre (100 ha) site that contains a landscape with over one million living plants; the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, a greenhouse containing several habitats; and the LuEsther T. Mertz Library, which contains one of the world's largest collections of botany-related texts. As of 2016, over a million people visit the New York Botanical Garden annually.
A herbarium is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study.
The Australian National Botanic Gardens (ANBG) is a heritage-listed botanical garden located in Acton, Canberra, in the Australian Capital Territory, Australia. Established in 1949, the Gardens is administered by the Australian Government's Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment. The botanic gardens was added to the Commonwealth Heritage List on 22 June 2004.
The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) is a scientific centre for the study of plants, their diversity and conservation, as well as a popular tourist attraction. Founded in 1670 as a physic garden to grow medicinal plants, today it occupies four sites across Scotland—Edinburgh, Dawyck, Logan and Benmore—each with its own specialist collection. The RBGE's living collection consists of more than 13,302 plant species, whilst the herbarium contains in excess of 3 million preserved specimens.
The Climatron is a greenhouse enclosed in a geodesic dome that is part of the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. Initiated by then Garden director Frits W. Went, the dome is the world's first completely air-conditioned greenhouse and the first geodesic dome to be enclosed in rigid Plexiglass (Perspex) panels. Completed in 1960, it was designed by T. C. Howard, of Synergetics, Inc., Raleigh, North Carolina. The broad climatic range within the dome, which recreates a lowland rain forest, is achieved by sophisticated climate controls without using interior partitions.
Peter Hamilton Raven is an American botanist and environmentalist, notable as the longtime director, now President Emeritus, of the Missouri Botanical Garden.
The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University is a botanical research institution and free public park, located in the Jamaica Plain and Roslindale neighborhoods of Boston, Massachusetts. Established in 1872, it is the oldest public arboretum in North America. The landscape was designed by Charles Sprague Sargent and Frederick Law Olmsted and is the second largest "link" in the Emerald Necklace. The Arnold Arboretum's collection of temperate trees, shrubs, and vines has a particular emphasis on the plants of the eastern United States and eastern Asia, where arboretum staff and colleagues are actively sourcing new material on plant collecting expeditions. The arboretum supports research in its landscape and in its Weld Hill Research Building.
Peter Sherlock Wyse Jackson is an Irish botanist and environmentalist. He is president of the Missouri Botanical Garden, and holder of the George Engelmann chair in botany at Washington University in St. Louis.
Liatris aspera is a wildflower that is found in the mid to eastern United States in habitats that range from mesic to dry prairie and dry savanna.
Eurybia macrophylla, commonly known as the bigleaf aster, large-leaved aster, largeleaf aster or bigleaf wood aster, is an herbaceous perennial in the family Asteraceae that was formerly treated in the genus Aster. It is native to eastern North America, with a range extending from eastern and central Canada through the northeastern deciduous and mixed forests of New England and the Great Lakes region and south along the Appalachians as far as the northeastern corner of Georgia, and west as far as Minnesota, Missouri and Arkansas. The flowers appear in the late summer to early fall and show ray florets that are usually either a deep lavender or violet, but sometimes white, and disc florets that are cream-coloured or light yellow, becoming purple as they mature. It is one of the parent species of the hybrid Eurybia × herveyi.
The Queensland Herbarium is situated at the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, Mount Coot-tha, in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is part of Queensland's Department of Environment and Science. It is responsible for discovering, describing, monitoring, modelling, surveying, naming and classifying Queensland's plants, and is the focus for information and research on the state's plants and plant communities.
The architecture of St. Louis exhibits a variety of commercial, residential, and monumental architecture. St. Louis, Missouri is known for the Gateway Arch, the tallest monument constructed in the United States. Architectural influences reflected in the area include French Colonial, German, early American, European influenced, French Second Empire, Victorian, and modern architectural styles.
Kew Gardens is a botanic garden in southwest London that houses the "largest and most diverse botanical and mycological collections in the world". Founded in 1840, from the exotic garden at Kew Park, its living collections includes some of the 27,000 taxa curated by Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, while the herbarium, one of the largest in the world, has over 8.5 million preserved plant and fungal specimens. The library contains more than 750,000 volumes, and the illustrations collection contains more than 175,000 prints and drawings of plants. It is one of London's top tourist attractions and is a World Heritage Site.
The ASM International Headquarters and Geodesic Dome, at the Materials Park campus in Russell Township, Geauga County, Ohio, United States, are the headquarters of ASM International, a professional organization for materials scientists and engineers. These modernist structures were built in 1958 and dedicated in September 1959.
The Jewel Box is a greenhouse located in Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri. It now serves as a public horticultural facility and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP).
Mildred Esther Mathias was an American botanist and professor.
The Index Herbariorum provides a global directory of herbaria and their associated staff. This searchable online index allows scientists rapid access to data related to 3,400 locations where a total of 350 million botanical specimens are permanently housed. The Index Herbariorum has its own staff and website. Over time, six editions of the Index were published from 1952 to 1974. The Index became available on-line in 1997.
The National Herbarium of New South Wales was established in 1853. The Herbarium has a collection of more than 1.4 million plant specimens, making it the second largest collection of pressed, dried plant specimens in Australia, including scientific and historically significant collections and samples of Australian flora gathered by Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander during the voyage of HMS Endeavour in 1770.
Petrorhagia saxifraga, known as tunic flower or coat flower, is a small, herbaceous flowering plant in the family Caryophyllaceae. It is native to parts of Europe and introduced to the United States and Canada, Great Britain, and Sweden. Petrorhagia saxifraga is also known as tunic saxifrage, pink saxifrage, or just pink.
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