Founded in 1819

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32775, 27 November 1971, Page 13

Founded in 1819

Orchids aside, the Botanic Gardens have all the standard parks paraphernalia—a lake, with fish and black swans (imported from Adelaide), fountains, sundials band concerts, and a nursery which supplies all the requirements of the gardens, and also sells plants to the public and supplies the needs of the Parks and Trees Department, which looks after street planting. Singapore’s first botanic gardens were founded by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819 on Government Hill, Fort Canning, but abandoned in 1846. The- present gardens were made by the Singapore AgriHorticultural Society in 1859, on 60 acres in Tanglin given by the Government, which also provided convict labour. Laurence Niven, a nutmeg planter, laid them out in English style and built the bones of the gardens as they are today. But in 1874 ,the society ran out of money, and the gardens passed into Government control. Sir Joseph Hooker (the famous Hooker of Kew) was approached for advice, and he sent out James Murton, who extended and refined the gardens, but was dismissed in 1880, for reasons not given in the official history. Murton’s successor, Henry Ridley (1888-1912) widened the scope of the gardens to include a research programme of taxonomy and mycology, a programme which is still one of the most important functions. \ Today there is a vast collection of plant material in a herbarium, and an extensive library housed in a wing of the administration buildings with plenty of room to acCbnuhodate the visiting botanists and other research workers who come to Singapore from many parts of the world. The gardens administration also functions as a training centre for botanists, and horticulturists, under the Colombo Plan; and it sends out plant collectors to gather orchids, living plants and tree seeds. In the orchid nursery I saw dendrobiums collected in Penang being prepared for replanting on trees in the park. Bird park A garden of a different nature, and one of Singapore’s newest tourist attractions 'is the 50-acre Jurong Bird Park, opened in January- and covering 50 acres on the side of Jurong Hill. This is now home for 8500 gaudy birds from nearly every tropical. country and a few temperate ones as well —macaws, ibis, cranes, storks, finches, parrots, peacocks, buzzards. No kiwis, however —though a paddock full of emus added an Antipodean flavour. Of the 8500 birds, some 3000 are. housed in a giant “flight-in” aviary spanning a five-acre valley which, in a brilliant engineering feat, has been totally enclosed with netting. At the head of the • valley, dropping 100 feet, is a man-made waterfall, billed as the largest man-made waterfall in the world. A continuous stream of water thunders over this and tinkles down a boulder-strewn stream-bed (also man-made) to the far end 'of the park, where it fills a series of lakes stocked with flamingos, cranes and other aquatic birds. Then the water is pumped back to the top to start the cycle over again. The wide-screen, technicolour effect is completed by the piped music (which is pumped into every comer of the park), the tramcars which take visitors on conducted tours, the souvenir shop, and the lakeside restaurant. But it is impressive, and it has an impressive supporting cast *