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THE HONG KONG BOTANICAL GARDENS, A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
D.A. GRIFFITHS AND S.P. LAU
The Victorian era in Europe was obsessed by the idea of cultivating exotic plants which had become more readily available as plant hunters explored more distant regions of the world. The culmination of this concept was the establishment of large botanic gardens where both local and exotic plants could be admired (often under unnatural conditions) by an incredulous populace eager to learn more of the distant parts of the Empire. In addition to this botanical zeal in Europe, the idea spread to various other areas of the British Commonwealth and botanical gardens soon sprang up in Rangoon, New Delhi, Madras, and Singapore, where for the first time local people were able to familiarize themselves with plants from their own as well as other regions of the world. In addition to this seemingly cosmetic role, botanical gardens also served other, more pragmatic, interests as the growth characteristics of more economically important plants could be examined for the first time under controlled conditions, enabling them to be exploited by commercial interests with an eye towards export trade.
In Hong Kong, the idea of establishing a Public Garden was mentioned officially for the first time in 1848, but even prior to that date, on March 27th, 1844, a letter of thanks from the Governor of Hong Kong was sent to the Deputy Governor of Bengal thanking him for a copy of the printed report of the Honorable Company's Botanic Gardens, indicating that the idea of a similar garden in Hong Kong had already been mooted. The first indication that Hong Kong was to be blessed with such a garden was made by Charles Gutzlaff in a statement to the Hong Kong branch of the
AUTHORS' ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
The authors wish to express their gratitude to the staff of the Library and Archives of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, England, the Public Records Office of Hong Kong, and the City Hall Public Library, Hong Kong, for their kind assistance.
S.P. Lau wishes to acknowledge with thanks the permission given by the Director of Agriculture and Fisheries to pursue a Ph.D. project at the University of Hong Kong, this article being a section of the thesis under preparation.