JOURNAL 
The New York Botanical Garden 
VoL. XI February, 1910. No. 122. 
RELATIONS OF BOTANICAL GARDENS TO 
THE PUBLIC.* 
Botanical gardens are important factors in public education, 
and are, at the same time, places for public recreation and en- 
joyment. They are highly specialized parks in which the planta- 
tions are formed and arranged primarily with regard to botanical 
facts and theories. Inasmuch as the great majority of their 
ng p a 
the plants, treated as museum objects, suitably labeled, are installed 
to illustrate not only the objects themselves, but their relation to 
other objects. This museum feature is then a direct and imme- 
diate function in imparting information to the public. 
The grouping of plants in botanical gardens is susceptible of 
widely different treatments, depending upon the character and the 
area of land available, the expense involved, and the facts and 
theories selected for illustration ; also in the temperate zones, at 
least, upon the amount of greenhouse space available ; also on 
the relative importance given to landscape considerations and 
upon the areas retained as natural forest, thicket or meadow. 
Facts and theories capable of demonstration may be grouped i in 
Read in a symposium on botanical gardens at meeting of American Association 
for the Advancement of Science, Boston, Dec. 28, 1901 
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