Page 20 - Tropical glasshouses

asian Jewels in the Crown
This book was published to mark the exhibition Asian Jewels in
the Crown, held from 14 April to
8 October 2017 in the Hortus botanicus Leiden. The botanical garden in Bogor (Java) (previously known as ’s Lands Plantentuin te Buitenzorg or ‘The country’s plant garden in Buitenzorg’) was founded
200 years ago this year; Leiden University is celebrating the opening of the Asian Library during Leiden Asia Year; and 2017 has been proclaimed the Year of the Botanical Garden. In 1817 Caspar Georg Carl Reinwardt was appointed director of ’s Lands Plantentuin te Buitenzorg, even before it was founded. He had also been given an assignment to discover which crops had economic potential. What about producing co ee or cocoa on Java? What kind of wood was suitable for building work? What other perspectives were o ered
by cultivating crops such as cinchona, vanilla, cinnamon or nutmeg? When Reinwardt returned to the Netherlands in 1823 he became a professor of botany in Leiden
and director of the Hortus.
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