Royal Botanic Gardens, Peradeniya
This botanical garden is noted for its rich and varied collections of tropical woody plants. Occupying 59 hectares (146 acres), it has about 4,000 species of plants. The most important specimens of the garden include palms, some of which are planted in impressive avenues. Significant, too, are the collections of orchids, gymnosperms, and flowering trees.
The vegetation
The vegetation is purely tropical, being characterized by an abundance of climbing plants or lianas, palms, bamboos, pandanus or screw-pines, epiphytes (orchids, ferns, etc.), and lofty trees, the latter often having buttresses roots. The leaves are generally large, thick, and leathery; the flowers usually brilliant and considerable in size and the fruits are often of immense proportions and borne on the trunks of trees or older branches.
H.F. Macmillan, F.L.S, F.R. H.S. 1906 (Curator)
4000 labeled species of flora at Peradeniya Botanical Gardens
A signboard at the entrance, with a map, features a numbered circuit from 1-30. The corresponding numbers are placed at strategic points on the route, black on a yellow background. 60 ha (150 acres) gardens, where you can easily stroll around a whole day, are stuffed with a bewildering variety of local & foreign tree & plant species. There are around ten thousand plants & trees inclusive of 4000 labeled species. One of the most interesting sites here is a bizarre-looking snake creeper, whose tangled aerial roots look just like a writhing knot of vipers.
The main entrance, River Drive, and avenues
The main entrance opens up the River Drive which takes you straight down to the great circle and then onto the suspension bridge over the River Mahaweli. River drive branches off to several avenues: Double Coconut Avenue, Cook’s Pine Avenue, Royal Palm Avenue, Palmyrah Palm Avenue, and Cabbage Palm Avenue
The spice garden, Orchid House
The spice garden to the right of the entrance is replete with exotic spices. Cardamom, Cloves Pepper & Vanilla. We follow the path to the right, right into the Orchid House with an outstanding collection.
The great circle and memorial trees
The great circle is a grassy central area of nearly 4 acres in extent. Around the circle is a diverse array of trees planted by dignitaries, who had visited the Peradeniya Royal Botanical Gardens.
A “Flamboyante” of Madagascar (Poinciana regia), planted by Princess Henry of Prussia in 1899; a “Bo” (Peepal) tree (Fiscus religiosa), planted in 1875 by King Edward VII; a “Na” tree, or Ceylon Ironweed (Mesua ferrea), planted in 1891 by Czar of Russia; Brownea grandiceps tree planted by the King of Greece in 1891; Amherstia nobilis, planted by Prince Henry of Prussia in 1898; ‘Asoka” tree (Saraca Indica) planted by Emperor of Austria in 1893; “Cannonball” tree (Couroupita guianensis), planted by the Prince of Wales in 1901.
Alongside generations of European royalty, there are trees planted by Indira Gandhi, then Prime Minister of India; Yuri Gagarin, the first man to circle the orbit of the earth, thereby cracking the door to space; Marshal Tito, the man who rebuilt Yugoslavia devastated in the Second World War; U Thant, the Secretary-General of the United Nations during the decade from 1961 to 1971 & Supermac Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the period of 1957 to 1963. Between the great circle & the great lawn is the Herbarium. Then there is an arboretum.
Natural pavilion
Grown from a sapling brought from East Indies, a huge Javan fig tree covering 1600 sq. meters of the lawn, with its sprawling roots & branches create a remarkable natural pavilion.
The Cabbage Palm Avenue
The Cabbage Palm Avenue from South America was planted in 1905. Walking along the stately avenue of Royal Palms (1885) we find fruit bats in large colonies hanging in the trees. Oh! Yes, true to their style, upside down.
Lawns, pavilions, sandwiches & a cup of tea
There are extensive well-kept lawns, pavilions, an Octagon Conservatory, fernery, banks of Burmese, Chinese & Japanese bamboos & numerous flower borders with cannas, hibiscus, chrysanthemums, croton & colourful bougainvillaea. You will see unusual exotic species, especially palms (Palmyra, talipot, royal, cabbage) & Ficus elastica (latex-bearing fig or “Indian rubber tree” with buttress roots), an amazing avenue of drunken-looking pines & some magnificent old specimen trees. Then there is the Ebony collection, Fiscus collection, Cycad Collection, Flower garden, Medicinal Garden, Cactus house and Plant house.
Cannonball avenue
Cannonball Avenue is lined with beautiful cannonball trees, wreathed in creepers from which hang the large, round fruits. These Sal trees are loved by the Sinhalese. The flowers have a singular shape: a tiny stupa-shaped bud in the centre is shaded by a cobra-like hood & surrounded by tiny florets which resemble a crowd of worshipers. It is believed Prince Siddhartha (who was to become Gautama Buddha) was born in a park of Sal trees called Lumbini, near the Sakyan kingdom of Kapilavastu in then north India, now the southern region of Nepal.
Talipot palms
Talipot palms (Corypha umbraculifera) are the easiest to identify with their enormous leaves. The talipot palm is one of Sri Lanka’s botanical celebrities, an arboreal oddity which flowers just once in its lifetime, after about forty years, producing the largest cluster of flowers in the world. In Kandyan times the enormous leaves reaching a height of 10 m were used to make tents by sewing a couple of leaves together. “One single Leaf being so broad & large, that it will cover some fifteen or twenty men, & keep them dry when it rains,” wrote Robert Knox. Talpot leaves were utilized to produce fine ultra long-lasting solid parchments called Ola, in Sri Lanka & India as early as in 500 BC. Young talipot leaves were boiled, dried in the sun, exposed to dew & smoothed & stretched. The treated leaves were then engraved with writing using a steel stylus to cut in the characters. Then the engraved leaf was smeared with ink made out of a resin blended with finely powdered charcoal. The great chronicle of Sri Lanka (Mahawamsa) & all other ancient books were written on these treated, cut & loosely bound talipot palm-leaf parchments.
Artificial lake
In the centre of the Gardens is an artificial lake with water plants including the giant water lily & papyrus reeds. Beside the lake is a white-domed rotunda commemorates George Gardener, the Superintendent of the park during 1844-1849.
“Coco de Mer” or “Double Coconut Palm”
One of the rarest plants in the world, Coco de Mer (Lodoicea sechellarum) is on a path leading to this monument of Gardner. This plant has the largest & heaviest fruit or nut in the plant kingdom, weighing an average of some10 – 20 kg. They take between five to eight years to mature & are surprisingly productive. It is not unusual to have 20 nuts on a tree. They are all carefully numbered. Native Coco de Mer is only found in Praslin, an island in Seychelles. Strolling along the path we reach the lily tank which is surrounded by giant bamboo, some 40m tall that grows 2-3 cm a day.
Suspension Bridge
Suspension Bridge across the River Mahaweli takes us to the School of Tropical Agriculture at Gannoruwa hill, where research is carried out into various important spices & medicinal herbs as well as into tea, coffee, coca, rubber, coconuts & varieties of rice & other cash crops.
Peradeniya campus
Just across the main road from the gardens is the Peradeniya campus of Sri Lanka University (1942), built in the old Kandyan style in an impressive set of a large park with the River Mahaweli running through it & the surrounding hillocks.
The History of Peradeniya Royal Botanical Park
The history of the park wouldn’t take a backseat to its geography, terrain or vegetation. Conceived originally in 1371 as the Queen’s pleasure garden, it was developed by King Kirti Sri Rajasinhe (1747-1778) where royal visitors were entertained. It was converted into Botanical Gardens in 1821, by the British during the deputy governorship of General Sir Edward Barnes, six years after the fall of the last King of Sri Lanka.
The official establishment of Peradeniya Botanical Gardens during the colonial era
It was British colonialist rulers (1815-1948) of Ceylon, who destroyed the invaluable forest cover of a thousand wooded hills from Kandy to Badulla of Central Highlands of Ceylon that was protected by the gentle sway of Buddhism, which indoctrinated the respect for all living beings.
The wooded hills were converted to the hill after hill of Ceylon Coffee and following the devastating “coffee rust” (a leaf blight – Hemileia vast matrix) in 1869 to seamless hill plantations of Ceylon Tea.
The very same British Colonialist rulers of Ceylon established the Peradeniya Botanic Gardens that contribute, today, towards the enlightenment of concepts of floriculture conservation, birdlife conservation, butterfly conservation, biodiversity and sustainability of the island of Sri Lanka: 5% of the school children of Sri Lanka visit the Peradeniya gardens every year.
Popular Tourist Attractions Ticket prices