Adelaide Botanic Garden

Work was begun on the site in 1855, with its official opening to the public on 4 October 1857. The Adelaide Botanic Garden and adjacent State Herbarium of South Australia, together with the Wittunga and Mt Lofty Botanic Gardens, are administered by the Board of the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium, a State Government statutory authority.

Early History

From the first official survey carried out for the map of Adelaide, Colonel William Light intended for the planned city to have a "botanical garden". To this end, he designated a naturally occurring ait[citation needed] that had formed in the course of the River Torrens, in what is now the West Parklands. However attempts to establish a garden were abandoned owing to frequent flooding of the area. After second attempt had failed, the northern bank of the Torrens, opposite the present location of the Adelaide Zoo, was considered, and it was here in 1839 that John Bailey, an experienced gardener, made a third attempt, but no funding was offered.

The South Australian Agricultural and Horticultural Society (formed 1842) and other groups continued to press for the creation of a public garden. The public were aware of the economic and scientific benefits of such a garden, already seen elsewhere in the British Empire.[2] In 1854 the present site was recommended to the government by the Society and George William Francis (who had begun appealing to the Governor Sir Henry Young soon after his arrival in 1849 to establish the garden), and Francis was appointed superintendent of the garden in 1855.

In January 1855 the Legislative Council finally approved the site. The land was held sacred by the Kaurna people as the red kangaroo dreaming (Tarndanyangga), but at that time it was being used as paddocks for police horses. Francis was responsible for establishing the perimeter, solving the flooding problems and landscaping North Terrace to blend well with the entrance to the garden. In October 1855 he presented his first progress report, including a plan of Regent’s Park in London as an example of circular garden design that he thought could be adapted for Adelaide.

Francis and his family moved into the superintendent's cottage in 1856, and the Garden was opened to the public on 4 October 1857. In 1860 the Botanic Garden Act was enacted, which established the Board of Governors, with Francis as Director. The site at that time included the present Botanic Garden, Botanic Park and Adelaide Zoo.

A pagoda was built in 1863, and Francis established the first herbarium and botanical library in Adelaide in 1864, a rustic temple modelled on the Museum of Economic Botany at Kew Gardens in England, with the design imitating the Parthenon in Athens. Francis gave lectures in the lecture room there each Tuesday.

Hakea francisiana, an Australian shrub that grows to 4 metres (13 ft), is named after him.

After his retirement shortly before his death in 1865, Francis was succeeded by botanist Dr Moritz Richard Schomburgk, brother to the German naturalist Robert Hermann Schomburgk. He was a major advocate for the establishment of forest reserves in the increasingly denuded South Australian countryside.

Schomburgk's successor, Dr M. W. Holtze I.S.O., did much to make the gardens more attractive to the general public.

Address: North Terrace, Adelaide SA 5000, Australia
Departments: Plane Tree Dr Parking
Hours: Closed ⋅ Opens 7:15AM Fri
Phone: +61 8 8222 9311