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BOTANIC GARDENS- W^HAT ROLE 



TODAY? 



An ''Operation Bootstraps" Opportunity for 



Botanists 



George S. Avery, Jr. 



Most people have the idea that a botanic garden or an arboretum is a park 

 without a place to play games, a place where plants bear labels with unpro- 

 nounceable names — something like an old-fashioned museum. In the past 

 thirty years our whole concept of a successful museum has changed, but 

 most botanic gardens still go along in the old way. To be sure, many 

 of them are great outdoor flower shows in the spring and early summer; but 

 this brief display can hardly justify the financial outlay for year-around care. 

 It is important, therefore, that botanic gardens play a twelve-month, active, 

 and useful role in their communities. 



The object of this story is to review briefly (1) how botanic gardens got 

 their start, (2) what most of them now offer, and (3) what I think the 

 future holds if we botanists have the imagination to grasp the opportunities 

 that lie before us. 



How BOTANIC GARDENS GOT THEIR START. One does not have to go back 

 much over a hundred years to reach the time when botanic gardens were still 

 either gardens of medicinal plants ("Physic Gardens") or gardens laid out in 

 the Linnaean manner to show plant relationships. Some were designed to 

 show economic uses of plants. Each of these reflected the culture of its time, 

 and small exhibits in these or similar categories are still common in botanic 

 gardens of today. They have a historical role and are not to be lightly 

 passed over, though we must be frank enough with ourselves to realize that 

 they are of greater interest to botanists than to the public generally. 



Of the hundred or so botanic gardens and arboretums in North America, 

 most were started by amateurs — dedicated people interested in nature and 



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