Wildly Uncultured. Dayflower, Commelina, and a Hoverfly, Toxomerus sp., Cultuurtuin, Paramaribo, Suriname
The Kew Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information, 1899, notes for 1894-95 that J. R. Wigman, son of the curator of the famous Bogor/Buitenpost Botanical Garden on Java, is being trained at Kew. He's been appointed the Curator of the Botanic Gardens of Paramaribo, to be given form on an abandoned sugar plantation. Several earlier attempts had been made in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries beginning with the trials of Isaac Eleazar Augar (?-1737) who worked for a short time as a physician in Paramaribo and had a small Hortus Medicus. He collected plants and sent them to Europe in any case to one of great Linnaeus's patrons, Clifford. Another atttempt was made under governor Texier in 1787 on the former plantation Maria's Lust. It, too, came to nothing. There were also ventures in the earlier nineteenth century but all came to naught. Advice was sought from famed Melchior Treub - a great partisan of 's Lands Plantentuin at Buitenzorg on Java - and he advised to establish such a place well out of Paramaribo at Bergendal. His notes were rejected,
Instead the government now chose a location just outside the city.
Wigman writes his Kew friends in 1898: "I am forming the garden on the site of an abandoned sugar plantation, half an hours walk from Paramaribo. It is almost overgrown again with forest, and it was so low that it gets flooded during the rains. I am at present occupied in clearing and draining, making road of the felled trees, and opening ditches to carry off the water. Along the roads I am planting" various trees.
In due course Wigman's attempts also failed, although he wrote several pieces on 'culture' plants such as citrus trees. It was of course the intention of such a garden to further agriculture in the then still Dutch colony.
Nothing remains today. There's a Sunday plant market, but that's all, and the shady roads. The Cultuurtuin itself is gone (except for a very sad zoo). There's a smallish Kampung Baru (New Village) where descendants live of the Javanese workers in the Garden. In fact, we had a nice talk with the 'guardian' - so he styled himself - of the former gardens, born of a Javanese father and a local mother. René has a great love for plants and was overjoyed to meet another fanatic. A bit worried he warned us about leaving the main track and to keep an eye out for robbers in the brush... We neither met nor even saw any.
Still there was lots to see in the marshy land with unkept ditches - perhaps the same one's dug by Wigman. In the photo a Dayflower, a Commelina; the areas literally crawls with them. And a great Hoverfly, I think a Toxomerus of some sort; just above the plants there's a constant hovering.
Wildly Uncultured. Dayflower, Commelina, and a Hoverfly, Toxomerus sp., Cultuurtuin, Paramaribo, Suriname
The Kew Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information, 1899, notes for 1894-95 that J. R. Wigman, son of the curator of the famous Bogor/Buitenpost Botanical Garden on Java, is being trained at Kew. He's been appointed the Curator of the Botanic Gardens of Paramaribo, to be given form on an abandoned sugar plantation. Several earlier attempts had been made in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries beginning with the trials of Isaac Eleazar Augar (?-1737) who worked for a short time as a physician in Paramaribo and had a small Hortus Medicus. He collected plants and sent them to Europe in any case to one of great Linnaeus's patrons, Clifford. Another atttempt was made under governor Texier in 1787 on the former plantation Maria's Lust. It, too, came to nothing. There were also ventures in the earlier nineteenth century but all came to naught. Advice was sought from famed Melchior Treub - a great partisan of 's Lands Plantentuin at Buitenzorg on Java - and he advised to establish such a place well out of Paramaribo at Bergendal. His notes were rejected,
Instead the government now chose a location just outside the city.
Wigman writes his Kew friends in 1898: "I am forming the garden on the site of an abandoned sugar plantation, half an hours walk from Paramaribo. It is almost overgrown again with forest, and it was so low that it gets flooded during the rains. I am at present occupied in clearing and draining, making road of the felled trees, and opening ditches to carry off the water. Along the roads I am planting" various trees.
In due course Wigman's attempts also failed, although he wrote several pieces on 'culture' plants such as citrus trees. It was of course the intention of such a garden to further agriculture in the then still Dutch colony.
Nothing remains today. There's a Sunday plant market, but that's all, and the shady roads. The Cultuurtuin itself is gone (except for a very sad zoo). There's a smallish Kampung Baru (New Village) where descendants live of the Javanese workers in the Garden. In fact, we had a nice talk with the 'guardian' - so he styled himself - of the former gardens, born of a Javanese father and a local mother. René has a great love for plants and was overjoyed to meet another fanatic. A bit worried he warned us about leaving the main track and to keep an eye out for robbers in the brush... We neither met nor even saw any.
Still there was lots to see in the marshy land with unkept ditches - perhaps the same one's dug by Wigman. In the photo a Dayflower, a Commelina; the areas literally crawls with them. And a great Hoverfly, I think a Toxomerus of some sort; just above the plants there's a constant hovering.