Looking at the distribution of botanic gardens and arboreta (= botanic gardens just for trees) in the world, there seems to be a puzzling discrepancy between their locations and the distribution of plant diversity worldwide. Europe and North America are covered by a dense network of botanic gardens, whereas large areas of tropical and subtropical areas, for example in South America or Africa, are empty, with individual botanic gardens far and wide apart.
Namibia’s National Botanic Garden is the only official botanic garden in Namibia. It is located right in the heart of Windhoek. With about 30 years, it is significantly younger than many other botanic gardens, but today, age does not matter. Its mission is to “protect and promote the sustainable utilisation of the Namibian flora and to function as an educational and recreational nature facility for Namibians and visitors alike”.
So I feel it was quite appropriate for us, coming back from a long botanic expedition into the Namib Desert (and you can read about the trip, and watch some videos about interesting plant species we had found on our path in the other blog chapters), to relax and spend the last day before catching our airplanes back to Europe, at the National Botanic Garden.
We asked Frances Chase, curator of the National Herbarium and an expert on Namibian plants, to show us some of her favourite plants, and to explain what it is that makes them so special.
Plants worldwide 