The Missouri Botanical Garden

Abstract

In this analysis, the author reviews the origins and operations of a major American establishment for the botanical sciences: the Missouri Botanical Garden. In recounting how the Garden was founded and why it survives today, the author suggests that botanical gardens are another one of the many social institutions used to generate knowledge in modern society, thereby articulating power. It is widely believed that modern men and women need scientific knowledge about plants to preserve and enrich life. Institutions like the United Kingdom’s Royal Botanical Garden at Kew or its North American imitator, the Missouri Botanical Garden, help create such knowledge. They express power by displaying bounded images of nature and by creating models of how humanity might coexist aesthetically and economically with certain plants in particular sites to produce the benefits of modern life. Thus, in addition to creating particular kinds of scientific information and providing entertainment, botanical gardens play a role in shaping contemporary political culture.