Singapore Botanic Gardens

The first "Botanical and Experimental Garden" in Singapore was established in 1822 on Government Hill at Fort Canning by - who else - Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore and a keen botanist. The Garden's main task was to evaluate for cultivation crops which were of potential economic importance including those yielding fruits, vegetables, spices and other raw materials. This first Garden closed in 1829.

It was 30 years later that the present Singapore Botanic Gardens began in 1859, when the Agri Horticultural Society was granted 32 hectares of land in Tanglin by the colonial government, which had swapped it with the merchant Hoo Ah Kah (known as Whampoa), in exchange for land at Boat Quay.

Lawrence Niven was the Superintendent and turned overgrown plantations and virgin rainforest into a public park. The layout of the Gardens as it is today is still largely Niven's design. The Agri Horticultural Society, however, ran out of funds and, in 1874, the colonial government took over the management of the Gardens.

The first rubber seedlings came to the gardens from Kew in 1877. A naturalist, Henry Nicholas Ridley, known as Mad Ridley, became director of the gardens in 1888 and pioneered rubber cultivation. Successful in his experiments with rubber planting, Ridley convinced planters across Malaya to adopt his methods. The results were revolutionary for Malaya's economy - Malaya became the world's number one producer and exporter of natural rubber.

Another achievement was the pioneering of orchid hybridisation by Professor Eric Holttum, director of the Gardens from 1925 to 1949. His techniques led to Singapore being one of the world's top centres of commercial orchid growing. Today it also has the largest collection of tropical plant specimens.

I am indebted to Wikipedia for this summary.