‘s Lands Plantentuin
The founder of ‘s Lands Plantentuin, the name given to the Garden by the Dutch, was Casper Georg Carl Reinwardt, a German who moved to Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and studied natural sciences, specializing in botany and chemistry.
In 1817, at the age of 44, Reinwardt was appointed to the position of Director in agricultural business, arts and sciences on Java and neighboring islands. He was interested in investigating plants which were widely used by the Javanese for domestic and medicinal purposes. Reinwardt decided to gather all these plants in a botanic garden in Bogor, at that time called Buitenzorg (meaning ‘Without a Care’). This also provided an opportunity to collect plants and seeds from other parts of the Archipelago and the Botanic Garden would eventually make Bogor a centre for the promotion of agriculture and horticulture in Indonesia.
On May 18, 1817, 47 hectares of the grounds bordering the palace were established as a Botanic Garden. Reinwardt became the first director from 1817 to 1822, during which time approximately 900 living plants were introduced to the Garden.
Prior to this, Sir Stamford Raffles had been Governor of Java from 1811 to 1816 and during his residence in Buitenzorg attempted to lay out the Palace grounds as an English-style landscaped garden. He even brought in two gardens from Kew in London, UK. The monument he erected in memory of his wife, Lady Olivia Marianne, who died in 1814, can be seen in the Garden.
The first catalogue of plants in the Garden (914 species) was published in 1823 by C.L. Blume (Director of the Garden from 1822 to 1826). This was the basis of the catalogue which is still used today.
In 1830, Johannes Elias Teysmann, a Dutch gardener, became curator of Bogor Botanic Garden and spent more than 50 years developing the Garden. Seven years later Justus Karl Hasskarl was appointed his assistant curator and convinced the director to re-arrange the plantings in the Garden by taxonomic families. This was a major undertaking as a huge part of the collection had to be transplanted. Some trees were too large to be moved as can be seen today by the date of planting shown on read labels. Continue reading