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The Singapore Botanic Gardens is a 156-year-old tropical garden located at the fringe of the Singapore's main shopping belt. It is one of three gardens, and the only tropical garden, to be honored as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Botanic Gardens has been ranked Asia's top park attraction since 2013, by TripAdvisor Travellers' Choice Awards. It was declared the inaugural ''Garden of the Year'', International Garden Tourism Awards in 2012, and received Michelin’s three-star rating in 2008. The Botanic Gardens was founded at its present site in 1859 by the an agri-horticultural society. It played a pivotal role in the region's rubber trade boom in the early twentieth century, when its first scientific director Henry Nicholas Ridley, headed research into the plant's cultivation. By perfecting the technique of rubber extraction, still in use today, and promoting its economic value to planters in the region, rubber output expanded rapidly. At its height in the 1920s, the Malayan peninsula cornered half of the global latex production. The National Orchid Garden, within the main gardens, is at the forefront of orchid studies and a pioneer in the cultivation of hybrids, complementing the nation's status as a major exporter of cut orchids. Aided by the equatorial climate, it houses the largest orchid collection of 1,200 species and 2,000 hybrids. Early in the nation's independence, Singapore Botanic Gardens' expertise helped to transform the island into a tropical ''Garden City'', an image and moniker for which the nation is widely known. In 1981, the hybrid climbing orchid, Vanda Miss Joaquim, was chosen as the nation's national flower. Singapore's "orchid diplomacy" honors visiting head of states, dignitaries and celebrities, by naming its finest hybrids after them; these are displayed at its popular VIP Orchid Gardens. Singapore's botanic gardens is the only one in the world that opens from 5 a.m. to 12 midnight every day of the year. More than 10,000 species of flora is spread over its 82-hectares area, which is stretched vertically; the longest distance between the northern and southern ends is . The Botanic Gardens receives about 4.5 million visitors annually. ==History== The first "Botanical and Experimental Garden" in Singapore was established in 1822 on Government Hill at Fort Canning by Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of modern Singapore and a keen naturalist. The Garden's main task was to evaluate for cultivation crops which were of potential economic importance including those yielding fruits, vegetables, spices and other raw materials. This first Garden closed in 1829. It was not until 30 years later that the present Singapore Botanic Gardens began in 1859, when the Agri Horticultural Society was granted 32 hectares of land in Tanglin by the colonial government, which had obtained it from the merchant Hoo Ah Kay, known as Whampoa, in exchange for land at Boat Quay. Lawrence Niven (landscape designer) was hired as superintendent and landscape designer to turn what were essentially overgrown plantations and a tangle of virgin rainforest into a public park. The layout of the Gardens as it is today is largely based on Niven's design. The Agri Horticultural Society, however, ran out of funds and, in 1874, the colonial government took over the management of the Gardens. The first rubber seedlings came to the gardens from Kew in 1877. A naturalist, Henry Nicholas Ridley, or Mad Ridley as he was known, became director of the gardens in 1888 and spearheaded rubber cultivation. Successful in his experiments with rubber planting, Ridley convinced planters across Malaya to adopt his methods. The results were astounding; Malaya became the world's number one producer and exporter of natural rubber. Another achievement was the pioneering of orchid hybridisation by Professor Eric Holttum, director of the Gardens from 1925 to 1949. His techniques led to Singapore being one of the world's top centres of commercial orchid growing. Today it also has the largest collection of tropical plant specimens. During the Japanese occupation of Singapore from 1942 to 1945, Hidezo Tanakadate (田中館秀三), a professor of geology from Tohoku Imperial University, took over control of the Singapore Botanic Gardens and the Raffles Museum. At the beginning of the occupation, he ensured that no looting occurred in the Gardens and the Museum. Both institutions continued to function as scientific institutions. Holttum and Edred John Henry Corner were interned in the Gardens and instructed to continue their horticultural work. The Gardens was also renamed as Shōnan Botanic Gardens (). Later that year, Dr. Kwan Koriba (郡場寛), a retired professor of botany from the Kyoto Imperial University, arrived as Director of the Gardens, a post he held until the end of the war. After the war, the Gardens was handed back to the control of the British. Murray Ross Henderson, curator of the Herbarium before the war, succeeded Holttum as director from 1949 to 1954. Eventually the Gardens played an important role during the "greening Singapore" campaign and Garden City campaign during the early independence years. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Singapore Botanic Gardens」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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