Aburi Botanical Gardens
Aburi Botanical Gardens is a botanical garden in Aburi in Eastern region of South Ghana.
![](../I/m/Aburi_Palms_Ghana.jpg)
The garden occupies an area of 64.8 hectares. It was opened in March, 1890 and was founded by Governor William Brandford-Griffith and Dr John Farrell Easmon, a Sierra Leonean medical doctor. [1] Before the garden was established, it was the site of a sanatorium built in 1875 for Gold Coast government officials. During the governorship of William Brandford-Griffith, a Basel missionary and Jamaican Moravian, Alexander Worthy Clerk, supervised clearing of land around the sanatorium to start the Botanic Department.[2] In 1890 William Crowther, a student from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, was appointed the garden's first curator.[3] The gardens played an important role in encouraging cocoa production in South Ghana, by supplying cheap cocoa seedlings and information about scientific farming methods.[4] After Hevea brasiliensis was sent to Aburi from Kew in 1893, the gardens also encouraged rubber production in Ghana.[5]
Gallery
- Spine palm (Aiphanes horrida, Synonym Aiphanes cyryotaefolia)
- Kigelia (sausage tree)
References
- Richard Kwame Debrah, The Beautiful Aburi Botanic Garden of Ghana, GhanaWeb, 4 June 2005
- "Fiarfield House [sic, Jamaica-Aburi (Fairfield House) - BM Archives". www.bmarchives.org. Retrieved 2019-10-05.
- Aburi Botanic Gardens. Botanic Gardens Conservation International
- Kwamina B. Dickson, A Historical Geography of Ghana, 1969, Cambridge University Press, p. 166. J. H. Frimpong-Ansah, The Vampire State in Africa: The Political Economy of Decline in Ghana, 1992, Africa World Press, p. 123.
- Kees Burger, Hidde P. Smit, The Natural Rubber Market: Review, Analysis, Policies and Outlook, 1997, Woodhead Publishing, p. 213.