The National Botanic Gardens of South Africa

Abstract

IN September 1938, the National Botanic Gardens of South Africa, at Kirstenbosch, and the Botanical Society celebrated their silver jubilee, and in the close of the year was produced a special number of the Journal of the Botanical Society with some very fine photographs, which show something of the beauty of the Kirstenbosch Botanic Garden with its ideal site on the slopes of Table Mountain.. The number contains a brief note by the editor, Prof. R. H. Compton, upon the history of the Gardens, the site of which was selected in 1913 by the late Dr. Pearson, then professor of botany at the South African College. On a motion by Sir Lionel Phillips, the House of Assembly and the Senate passed unanimously in that year a motion that Kirstenbosch, bequeathed to the people of the Cape by Cecil Rhodes as part of his great Groot Schuur Estate, should be granted by the Government as the site of the National Botanic Gardens. The Government consented, making an annual grant towards its support, and at the same time the Botanical Society was formed, with some three hundred subscribers, to enlist public support for the new venture. The early onset of the Great War and the subsequent financial depression has caused delay, but the Director can record many striking indications of progress in the Gardens, and the Botanical Society has now nearly 2,000 members enrolled.