Discover St. Vincent and the Grenadines – Botanic Gardens
- By Michael Smart
- December 8, 2014
- No Comments
As you stroll its tranquil grounds, you fall under the alluring spell of its magnificent sights, vibrant colors, and exotic scents. Palm tree branches rustle overhead, the fronds of different species spread in variegated colors, sizes and shapes, from trunks tall and graceful, short and bushy, or sheathed in red. The dazzling yellows, blues, pinks and purples of hibiscus, bougainvillea, flamboyants, apple blossoms, poinsettias, and petreas, capture and enchant the eye. The seductive fragrances of ylang-ylang, lady of the night, coffee, citrus, and a variety of flowering trees and shrubs, perfume the air.You’re in the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Botanic Gardens, located a mile north of Kingstown. A breathtaking 20 acres of spectacular plants, and an aviary housing St. Vincent’s national bird, the Amazona guildingii parrot.
Established in 1765 after the Treaty of Paris retuned St. Vincent to the British in 1763, the Gardens will celebrate its 250th anniversary next year, as one of the oldest Botanic Gardens in the Western Hemisphere, perhaps the oldest in the tropical world. It is also a guide map to St. Vincent’s history.
The original intent by the newly appointed British governor, General Robert Melville, in concert with his military surgeon George Young, who would be the Gardens’ first curator, was to provide medicinal plants for the military, and improve the fledgling colony’s economy. He believed native experience, including old Caribs, and former slaves, who dealt in natural cures, might be worth taking notice of. Melville cleared and set aside 20 acres of land for “the cultivation and improvement of many plants now growing wild, and the import of others from similar climates” which “would be of great utility to the public and vastly improve the resources of the island”.
Melville and Young embarked on the collection and conservation of commercial plant species from across the British empire, including tropical India, Borneo, and other east India possessions. In 1793 the first Breadfruit tree was introduced, the delicate and fragile seeds transported to St. Vincent by the same Captain Bligh who a few years earlier had suffered a munity aboard his ship HMS Bounty. Some seed species were obtained from locations as far distant as China. Other species were obtained by exchanging seeds and plants with the French on Martinique and Guadeloupe, who had also established and maintained gardens on which, like the British, the economies and food supplies of their Caribbean colonies depended. This exchange between islands continued under General de Bouill, during the French repossession of St. Vincent from 1779 to 1783.
By 1850, the arduous task of establishing colonies past, the structure, administration, and economic viability of the colonies entrenched, the central role of Botanic Gardens was no longer necessary. Botanic Gardens around the Caribbean, including the Gardens on St. Vincent, lapsed into mere agricultural stations, many deteriorating from neglect. In 1884, St. Vincent initiated a plan to revive the Gardens and its plant collections. In the 130 years since, St. Vincent has continued to improve the grounds, and to introduce new plant species for study, experimentation, and as additions to the collection.
Today, the Botanic Gardens not only provide a link to St. Vincent’s past, it is a contemplative and restful retreat; a source of national pride; one of the most visited tourist spots on St. Vincent; and an enchanting venue for weddings, nature photography, family celebrations, reading, or just strolling.
Click here to learn more about St. Vincent and the Grenadines Botanic Gardens.
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