6 BOTANIC GARDBNS 



conditions, which in the main have been studied only amidarti- 

 ficial surroundings. At Buitenzorg the eleven hundred acres of 

 ground comprised within the garden occupies territory from 

 near sea level to a height of about eight thousand feet, andper- 

 fectlv suitable elimatic conditions can be found for all the nine 

 thousand species growing within it. Biologicalh r this would 

 be equivalent to a strip of territon r at sea level extending from 

 the tropics northward as far as Minneapolis. In addition to 

 many other advantages, the abundant water supply in the 

 streams and lakes within its limits furnish abundant facilities 

 for the study of aquatic plants. In Plate [ is shown a view of 

 an island in one of the large lakes devoted to this purpose, in 

 the main grounds. It is of course unnecessary to say that this 

 institution has furnished opportunities for many important 

 discoveries, and that it has become a Mecca for the botanists 

 of the world. The list of names of investigators who have car- 

 ried on work here includes a large number of those most prom- 

 inent in the development of botanical science. 



The great age of the gardens of continental Europe make 

 them objects of great interest since many of them antedate the 

 foundation of botany as a biological science. That atBologna 

 was formed in 1568, at Leyden in 1577, at Montpelier inl593, 

 at Giessen in 1605, at Strassburg in 1620, at Jena in 1629, at 

 Paris in 1633 and at Upsala in 1657. 



As has been previously mentioned, nearly all of the older 

 gardens began with the cultivation of medicinal or economic 

 plants, and their development until the present time has been 

 influenced by the peculiar local conditions surrounding each of 

 them, the corresponding development of biological study atthe 

 time of their most vigorous expansion, and the particular part 

 assumed by the botanists in charge of them, in scientific inves- 

 tigation. As a result, the gardens of Europe are each highly 

 specialized and their chief purposes may be found through the 

 entire range of usefulness from pleasure parks to institutions 

 for research. In those devoted to the last named purpose the 

 specialization has been carried to such farther extent that gen- 

 erally, in each of them, facilities are atforded for rescarch in one 

 or at least a few lines onby, of purelv scientific orappliedbotan- 



