The Peradeniya Botanical Garden is one of the most popular tourist attraction botanical garden in Sri Lanka. Also called the Royal Botanic Gardens of Peradeniya, it is situated at a distance of 5.5km from the central city of Sri Lanka, Kandy. It attracts about 2 million annual visitors.
It is located near the Mahaweli River, Sri Lanka’s longest river, it has its unique collection of orchids. It also inherits more than 4,000 species of plants including orchids, spices, herbs, and palm trees. Managed by the National Botanic Gardens Division of the Department of Agriculture, the garden covers an area of 147 acres and is located at an altitude of 460m above sea level. In 1821, Alexander Moon made the initial work to turn this into a botanical garden, where he cultivated coffee and cinnamon as the initial crops. The garden was formally established in 1843 and brought in plants from Kev garden, Slave Island, Colombo, and Kaluthara.
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The garden is also known as the Palms classic avenue. Because there have roads named Cook’s pine avenue, Palmyra palm avenue, Double coconut avenue, Cabbage palm avenue, Royal palm avenue.
Here is the list of some plants growing in Royal Botanical Gardens:
- Araucaria columnaris
- Asplenium nidus
- Bambusa vulgaris
- Borassus flabellifer
- Calophyllum tomentosum
- Cinnamomum zeylanicum
- Coelogyne mayeriana
- Couroupita guianensis
- Cyperus papyrus
- Dendrocalamus giganteus
- Elettaria cardamomum
These gardens were once reserved exclusively for the Kandyan royalty. Today, even ordinary people are allowed to enjoy some of Sri Lanka’s most attractive and largest botanical gardens.
