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3 unusual facts about Royal Botanical Gardens


Memecylon macrocarpum

It is extinct from the natural habitats in Sri Lanka, and only live specimen of this species is planted in Royal Botanical Gardens, Peradeniya.

Royal Botanical Gardens, Peradeniya

One tree with a significant history is the Cannonball Tree planted by King George V of the United Kingdom and Queen Mary in 1901.

During the Second World War, the Botanical Garden was used by Lord Louis Mountbatten, the supreme commander of the allied forces in the South Asia, as the headquarters of the South East Asia Command.


Acer mandshuricum

In Canada, the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton, Ontario have three Manchurian maples each about 10 m (35 ft) tall.

George Henry Kendrick Thwaites

In March 1849, on the death of George Gardner, Thwaites was appointed superintendent of the botanical gardens at Peradeniya, Ceylon.

Hooker Oak

Many of these were given to various institutions, which included the Royal Botanical Gardens in London, the Butte County Historical Society, Bidwell Mansion, Sacramento Valley Museum, Butte College, California State University, Chico, and the University of California at Berkeley.

The Royal Botanical Gardens also received acorns from the original tree in 1981 and planted them in their gardens.

Sabatia arkansana

While surveying populations of the rare pipewort Eriocaulon koernickianum in similar habitats near the town of Bauxite, John Pringle, a botanist from the Royal Botanical Gardens in Ontario, and Witsell discovered another population of Pelton's rose gentian.

Teaching Hospital, Peradeniya

The hospital is situated aside the A1 highway connecting Kandy and Colombo, near the Royal Botanical Gardens, Peradeniya.


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