University of Oxford Botanic Garden
University of Oxford Botanic Garden & Harcourt Arboretum | |
---|---|
Type | Botanic Garden |
Location | High Street, Oxford, England |
Coordinates | 51°45′02″N 1°14′54″W / 51.75056°N 1.24833°W |
Area | 1.8 hectares (18,000 m2) |
Created | 1621[1] |
Operated by | University of Oxford |
Visitors | 211,573 (2019)[2] |
Status | Open all year |
Website | https://www.obga.ox.ac.uk |
The University of Oxford Botanic Garden is the oldest botanic garden in Great Britain and one of the oldest scientific gardens in the world. The garden was founded in 1621 as a physic garden growing plants for medicinal research. Today it contains over 5,000 different plant species on 1.8 ha (4+1⁄2 acres). It is one of the most diverse yet compact collections of plants in the world and includes representatives from over 90% of the higher plant families.[citation needed]
Professor Simon Hiscock became Director of Oxford Botanic Garden in 2015.[3][4]
History
Foundation
In 1621,
Catalogue
The first head gardener was the Botanist Jacob Bobart who in 1648 published a catalogue of sixteen hundred plants under his care ('Catalogus plantarum horti medici Oxoniensis, scil. Latino-Anglicus et Anglico-Latinus') with their Latin and English names; this was revised in 1658 in conjunction with his son, Jacob Bobart the Younger, Dr Philip Stephens, and William Brown. Humphry Sibthorp began the catalogue of the plants of the garden, Catalogus Plantarum Horti Botanici Oxoniensis. His youngest son was the botanist John Sibthorp (1758–1796), who continued the Catalogus Plantarum.[citation needed]
Layout
The Garden comprises three sections:
- the Walled Garden, surrounded by the original seventeenth-century stonework and home to the Garden's oldest tree; an English yew, Taxus baccata
- the Glasshouses, which allow the cultivation of plants needing protection from the extremes of British weather
- the Lower garden
- the area between the Walled Garden and the River Cherwell
A satellite site, the Harcourt Arboretum, is located six miles (9.7 km) south of Oxford.[citation needed]
The Danby Gate
The Danby Gate at the front entrance to the Botanic Garden is one of three entrances designed
The gateway consists of three bays, each with a pediment. The largest and central bay, containing the segmented arch is recessed, causing its larger pediment to be partially hidden by the flanking smaller pediments of the projecting lateral bays.[citation needed]
The stone work is heavily decorated being bands of alternating vermiculated rustication and plain dressed stone. The pediments of the lateral bays are seemingly supported by circular columns which frame niches containing statues of Charles I and Charles II in classical pose. The tympanum of the central pediment contains a segmented niche containing a bust of the Earl of Danby. It is a Grade I listed structure (ref. 1485/423). The gate was shot at during the English Civil War. It previously held a statue of Charles I and one other (probably the Queen) as Charles II was only three years old when the gateway was built. The restoration dates from around 1653 and portrays both the late Charles I and the then current king, Charles II. It was sculpted by William Bird of Oxford.[10]
Walled garden
- Botanical Family beds
The core collection of hardy plants are grouped in long, narrow, oblong beds by botanical family and ordered according to the
.In 1983,
- Medicinal beds
The South West corner of the Botanic Garden is home to a modern medicinal plant collection. Here you will find 8 beds, each growing plants with a connection to medicine used to treat a particular type of disease or illness. There are beds for
- Cardiology (heart complaints)
- Oncology (cancer and cell-proliferation)
- Infectious Diseases (viral and parasitic)
- Gastreoenterology (alimentary tract and metabolism)
- Dermatology (skin complaints)
- Haematology (blood typing and disorders)
- Neurology (nervous system and anaesthesia)
- Pulmonology (lungs and airways)
The plants growing in these beds contain many different natural products and fall into at least one of the following three categories:
- Directly suitable for use as a drug
- Synthetic modification provides a clinically suitable drug
- Starting point for a drug discovery programme
- Bearded irises
One bed in the northwest corner of the garden contains a display of bearded irises each May. Examples include Iris 'Eileen' and Iris 'Golden Encore'. Some of the varieties grown in the Garden are not grown anywhere else.[citation needed]
- Wall borders
The borders along the foot of the wall contain collections that thrive in the
Other wall borders contain plants from Biodiversity hotspots including Japan and New Zealand. Such areas hold high numbers of Endemic plant species, yet face substantial threat to their natural vegetation. Over 50% of the world's plant species are contained within these hotspots which collectively cover only 2.3% of the Earth's land surface.[citation needed]
Glasshouses
- Conservatory
The house is an aluminium replica of the original 1893
. Various exhibitions which change throughout the year are displayed in the centre area.- Alpine House
Plants which cannot grow to their full potential outside are displayed in this house. The displays are changed regularly so that there is always something in flower.[citation needed]
- Fernery
A collection of
- Tropical Lily House
The tank in the lily house built in 1851 by Professor
- Insectivorous House
This house grows a collection of Carnivorous plants. Carnivory has evolved several times in plants and this collection displays many of the mechanisms required to trap insect prey. Some traps are passive, such as the sticky flypaper of the genus Pinguicula whereas others like the Venus flytrap, Dionaea muscipula, actually move and are triggered by the unlucky insect walking across the surface.[citation needed]
- Palm House
The largest glasshouse in the Garden, this house grows
- Arid House
Plants in this house come from arid areas of the world and demonstrate ways in which plant forms economize the use of water. Many different species of Cacti and Succulent plants are found here demonstrating all of their various tactics to reduce water loss to their hostile environments.[citation needed]
Outside the walled garden
- Rock Garden
- Bog Garden
- Herbaceous Border
First laid out in 1946, this planting is a classic example of the traditional English herbaceous border. Unlike other areas of the Garden, this border relies entirely on herbaceous perennials. These die back to a rootstock each winter before bursting back into life again in spring and flowering through the summer. The planting is designed to provide interest from April to October. The display begins with tulips in a range of colours, followed by early, mid-season and late flowering perennials. The plants are arranged in layers, with the smaller plants positioned at the front of the border and the taller plants toward the back. Occasionally we allow a few of the larger plants to make their way to the front to break up the formality.[citation needed]
- Autumn Border
- Glasshouse Borders
- Merton Borders
Designed in collaboration with Professor James Hitchmough from the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Sheffield
At 955m2 these borders form the largest single cultivated area in the Botanic Garden. They are an example of sustainable horticultural development, with minimal impact on the environment in the long term.[citation needed]
The plants have been selected for their ability to withstand drought conditions and originate from seasonally dry grassland communities in three regions of the world:
- The Central to Southern Great Plains (USA) through to the Colorado Plateau and into California
- East South Africa at latitudes above 1000m
- Southern Europe to Turkey and across Asia to Siberia
In literature
The Garden was the site of frequent visits in the 1860s by the Oxford mathematics professor Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) and the Liddell children, Alice and her sisters. Like many of the places and people of Oxford, it was a source of inspiration for Carroll's stories in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The Garden's waterlily house can be seen in the background of Sir John Tenniel's illustration of "The Queen's Croquet-Ground".[citation needed]
Another Oxford professor and author,
In the Evelyn Waugh novel Brideshead Revisited, Lord Sebastian Flyte takes Charles Ryder "to see the ivy" soon after they first meet. As he says, "Oh, Charles, what a lot you have to learn! There's a beautiful arch there and more different kinds of ivy than I knew existed. I don't know where I should be without the Botanical gardens" (Chapter One).[citation needed]
In Philip Pullman's trilogy of novels His Dark Materials, a bench in the back of the garden is one of the locations that stand parallel in the different worlds that the two protagonists, Lyra Belacqua and Will Parry, inhabit.[14] In the last chapter of the trilogy, both promise to sit on the bench for an hour at noon on Midsummer's day every year so that perhaps they may feel each other's presence next to one another in their own worlds. Now a place of pilgrimage for Pullman's fans, the bench is recognizable due to graffiti such as "Lyra + Will" or "L + W" left by its visitors[15] and, since 2019, the sculpture by Julian Warren installed behind it.[16]
See also
Notes
- ^ "Oxford Botanic Garden & Arboretum – Celebrating 400 years". University of Oxford Botanic Garden. Archived from the original on 24 August 2021. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
- ^ "ALVA - Association of Leading Visitor Attractions". www.alva.org.uk. Retrieved 9 November 2020.
- ^ "Professor Simon Hiscock". www.obga.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
- ^ "Simon Hiscock". worc.ox..ac.uk. Retrieved 31 August 2018.
- ^ Lawrence H. Officer, "Purchasing Power of British Pounds from 1264 to 2005". MeasuringWorth.com, 2006, accessed 11 December 2006.
- ^ Oxfordhistory.org.uk.
- ^ "The Danby Gate (Oxford, 1632-3): a portal between two worlds | cabinet". www.cabinet.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 1 September 2022.
- ^ "probably designed", according to Colvin 1995.
- Tutte l'opere d'architettura, Volume 6. p. 17. "Libro estraordinario" published in 1584.
- ^ Cole, J. C. (1949). "William Byrd, Stonecutter and Mason" (PDF). Oxoniensia. 163: 63–74.
- ^ "Oxford Botanic Garden". Atlas Obscura. Retrieved 31 July 2019.
- ^ "Botanic Garden bids farewell to iconic black pine | University of Oxford". www.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 31 July 2019.
- ^ "A giant falls: Tolkien's tree | Oxford Today". www.oxfordtoday.ox.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 8 November 2017. Retrieved 31 July 2019.
- ISBN 0-9547671-1-X.
- ^ "New Philip Pullman-themed Oxford tour lets you explore the city through Lyra's eyes". The Independent. 19 October 2017. Retrieved 31 July 2019.
- ^ "GRAY MATTER: Philip Pullman's daemons descend on Oxford Botanic Garden". The Oxford Times. 6 June 2019. Retrieved 31 July 2019.
References
- Colvin, Howard, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600–1840 3rd ed. (Yale University Press) 1995, s.v. "Stone, Nicholas"
- Jennifer Sherwood, Nikolaus Pevsner (1974). The Buildings of England, Oxfordshire. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-09639-9.
External links
- Official website
- Virtual tour Archived 23 September 2015 at the Wayback Machine
- The Friends of Oxford Botanic Garden
- Oxford Botanic Garden — a Gardens Guide review Archived 6 July 2008 at the Wayback Machine