EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF MODERN 

 BOTANICAL GARDENS 



BY GEORGE T. MOORE, PH. D. 



Director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, Mo. 



THE cultivation of plants for their healing quali- 

 ties by the monks of the middle ages appears tc 

 have been the beginning of the modern botanical 

 garden, although these medieval gardens doubtless 

 took their origin from others of greater antiquity. 



A most ingenious theory concerning the origin of 

 botanical gardens was put forward by a Frenchman 

 who claimed that during the i6th century designers of 

 embroidery and lace in France sought inspiration from 

 blooming plants. To meet this demand an enter- 

 prising horticulturist opened a garden with conserva- 

 tories in which he cultivated many strange and little- 

 known varieties. Later this garden became crown 

 property and medical students were admitted on condi- 

 tion that they would not interfere with the designers 

 of textiles and laces. Although the aesthetic study of 

 plants must have appealed to those who visited public 

 gardens, and even at the present day designers and 

 makers of artificial flowers get many ideas from study- 

 ing nature, it seems quite certain that botanical gardens 

 were primarily created for the students of maUria 

 medica. 



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