新加坡植物园 Singapore Botanic Gardens – 亚洲第一热带世界遗产植物园

从莱佛士 1822 年实验花园到 1859 年 Agri-horticultural Society 创立

新加坡植物园（Singapore Botanic Gardens，缩写 SBG）位于新加坡乌节路购物区边缘，介于 Holland Road / Napier Road / Cluny Road 与 Bukit Timah Road 之间，南北直线距离约 2.5 公里。园方记载的第一座『植物与实验花园』由现代新加坡创始人斯坦福·莱佛士爵士（Sir Stamford Raffles）于 1822 年在政府山（Government Hill）设立，主要任务是评估对经济有潜在价值的栽培作物，包括果树、蔬菜、香料及其他原材料；这座先驱花园于 1829 年关闭。三十年后，1859 年新加坡农业园艺学会（Agri-horticultural Society）在殖民地政府划拨的 32 公顷土地（位于 Tanglin，从商人 Hoo Ah Kay 即 Whampoa 处换得）上建立了延续至今的新加坡植物园，初期以会员『娱乐公园』为主，劳伦斯·尼文（Lawrence Niven）受聘为总监与景观设计师，按照英国风景造园运动（English Landscape Garden Movement）的语汇，将原本杂乱的种植园与原始雨林改造成公共园林，今天园区的整体布局仍以 Niven 设计为基底。

Henry Ridley 的橡胶实验与新加坡作为东南亚橡胶贸易枢纽的崛起

1877 年首批橡胶树苗从英国邱园（Kew Gardens）来到新加坡，1888 年起担任园主任的亨利·尼古拉斯·里德利（Henry Nicholas Ridley，因执着推广橡胶被昵称『Mad Ridley』）主导了橡胶栽培研究：他不仅完善了仍在使用的橡胶割胶技术，还说服马来亚各地种植者采用他的方法，到 1920 年代马来半岛几乎垄断了全球一半的乳胶产量。新加坡植物园同期也建立了 Economic Garden、Palm Valley（1879）、Plant House、苗圃等设施，并于 1882 年建成 Ridley Hall、1910 年建成 E.J.H Corner House、1921 年建成 Holttum Hall。1925 至 1949 年担任园主任的埃里克·霍尔特姆（Eric Holttum）教授开创了兰花杂交技术，使新加坡成为世界商业兰花栽培中心之一。1981 年新加坡将霍尔特姆时代培育的攀缘杂交兰花 Vanda Miss Joaquim 定为国家花，今天 VIP 兰花外交以国家植物园培育的优良杂交品种命名来访的国家元首、政要与名人。

82 公顷热带植物园、National Orchid Garden 与热带雨林核心区

今天的新加坡植物园占地约 82 公顷（200 英亩），纵向延伸约 2.5 公里，保育超过 10,000 个植物物种，每年接待约 450 万游客，被联合国教科文组织列为世界遗产名录上仅有的第三座植物园，也是名录上第一座也是唯一一座热带植物园。其核心景区 National Orchid Garden（国家兰花园）位于园区中西部一座 3 公顷的丘陵地带，保育超过 1,000 种兰花和 2,000 个杂交品种，是世界最大的热带兰花收藏；区内分为 Burkill Hall（1886 年殖民种植园平房，纪念父子园主任 Isaac 与 Humphrey Burkill）、VIP Orchid Garden、Tan Hoon Siang Misthouse、Lady Yuen-Peng McNeice 凤梨科温室、Coolhouse 与 Orchidarium 等子景区。园区中部还保留着一片约 6 公顷、年代早于植物园本身的低地热带雨林，主要由龙脑香科（Dipterocarpaceae）树种组成，包括极危的 Anthoshorea gratissima、Vatica pauciflora 与 Vatica ridleyana，园方称这里是世界上仅有的两座城市内热带雨林之一（另一处是里约热内卢的蒂茹卡森林）。

Learning Forest 扩建、Swan Lake 与 Symphony Stage 的当代运营

2009 年新加坡宣布 Tyersall 扩建计划，新增 18 公顷土地，使园区规模扩大到 1859 年的近 4 倍；这一以 Learning Forest 为核心的新区于 2018 年全面完工，包含森林保育诠释中心、自然历史美术馆（设于百年殖民建筑内）、巨型树木与稀有果树保育区、兰、竹专类园，以及一座可容纳约 15 个奥运标准泳池雨水的雨水调蓄池，同时兼具 Orchard Road 一带的防洪功能。园区内的三座主要湖泊 Symphony Lake、Eco-Lake 与 Swan Lake（后者于 1866 年挖掘）承载着园林与公共生活的交汇，Shaw Foundation Symphony Stage 周末举办新加坡交响乐团与新加坡华乐团的免费音乐会；2008 年 10 月 10 日一座弗雷德里克·肖邦雕像在 Symphony Lake 南侧揭幕。Botany Centre 集中了 Library of Botany and Horticulture、新加坡植物标本馆（国际缩写 Herb. SING，保藏 75 万份标本）、兰花育种与微繁殖实验室；Green Pavilion 拥有新加坡第一座绿色屋顶；2007 年开放、由 Jacob Ballas 基金会捐资命名的 Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden 是亚洲第一座儿童植物园，2017 年扩建后成为亚洲最大的儿童植物园。

2015 UNESCO 申遗、热带保育科研与全球第三座世界遗产植物园

新加坡植物园于 2014 年 1 月正式向联合国教科文组织提交申遗文本，由新加坡国家遗产局（NHB）古迹保护处与时任园主任 Nigel Taylor 博士（曾参与英国邱园 2000 至 2003 年的申遗）牵头编纂一份长达 700 页的提名档案。国际古迹遗址理事会（ICOMOS）专家小组于 2015 年 5 月 16 日无保留地建议将园区列入《世界遗产名录》，理由是『展示了一座英国热带殖民园林向现代世界级植物园、科学机构和保护教育场所的演变』。同年 7 月 4 日在德国波恩举行的世界遗产委员会第 39 届会议上，21 个成员国一致通过将新加坡植物园列入《世界遗产名录》，这是继帕多瓦植物园（1545 年创立，意大利）和英国邱园（1759 年创立）之后世界第三座、热带第一座植物园获此殊荣，被广泛视为对新加坡独立 50 周年的恰当致敬。今天新加坡植物园在新加坡国家公园管理局（National Parks Board，简称 NParks）辖下，以 Garden City 愿景、园艺学、分类学与生物多样性研究、休闲与教育为四大主线，免费向公众开放（National Orchid Garden 单独收费），是热带植物迁地保护、科普与城市生态治理的核心机构。

官网：https://www.nparks.gov.sg/sbg

From Raffles’ 1822 Government Hill Garden to the 1859 Agri-horticultural Society Founding

The Singapore Botanic Gardens (SBG) sits on the fringe of Singapore’s Orchard Road shopping district, framed by Holland Road and Napier Road to the south, Cluny Road to the east, Tyersall Avenue and Cluny Park Road to the west, and Bukit Timah Road to the north, stretching roughly 2.5 kilometres between its northern and southern ends. The gardens trace their first chapter to 1822, when Sir Stamford Raffles, founder of modern Singapore and a keen naturalist, established a small Botanical and Experimental Garden on Government Hill to evaluate economically promising crops such as fruits, vegetables, spices and other raw materials; that pioneer garden closed in 1829. Three decades later, the present gardens were founded in 1859 when the Singapore Agri-horticultural Society was granted 32 hectares in Tanglin by the colonial government, which had obtained the land from the merchant Hoo Ah Kay, better known as Whampoa, in exchange for land at Boat Quay. Lawrence Niven, hired as superintendent and landscape designer, re-shaped the overgrown plantations and rainforest tangle into a public park following the styles of the English Landscape Garden Movement, and the present-day layout still follows his plan.

Henry Ridley’s Rubber Experiments and Singapore’s Rise as a Southeast Asian Rubber Hub

The first rubber seedlings arrived at the gardens from Kew Gardens in 1877, and Henry Nicholas Ridley — known to planters as Mad Ridley — became director in 1888 and led the research that refined the rubber tapping technique still in use today. He persuaded planters across Malaya to adopt his methods, and by the 1920s the peninsula cornered half of the global latex production, transforming the regional economy. During the same period the gardens built up the Palm Valley (1879), Ridley Hall (1882), the E.J.H Corner House (1910), Holttum Hall (1921) and a Plant House that supported the colonial economic garden. Eric Holttum, director from 1925 to 1949, pioneered orchid hybridisation and helped make Singapore one of the world’s leading centres of commercial orchid growing; the climbing hybrid Vanda Miss Joaquim that emerged during this era was chosen as Singapore’s national flower in 1981, and the gardens’ orchid diplomacy continues today, naming VIP hybrids after visiting heads of state and dignitaries.

The 82-Hectare Tropical Garden, National Orchid Garden and the In-City Rainforest

Today the Singapore Botanic Gardens spans about 82 hectares (200 acres), preserves more than 10,000 plant species and welcomes roughly 4.5 million visitors a year. It is the third garden — and the only tropical garden — on the UNESCO World Heritage List. At the heart of the gardens sits the National Orchid Garden, a hilly three-hectare site on the mid-western side that houses the world’s largest tropical orchid collection: more than 1,000 species and 2,000 hybrids. Its themed zones include Burkill Hall (an 1886 colonial bungalow named for the only father-and-son pair to direct the gardens), the VIP Orchid Garden, the Tan Hoon Siang Misthouse, the Lady Yuen-Peng McNeice Bromeliad House, the Coolhouse and the Orchidarium. Tucked between the formal gardens lies a six-hectare lowland tropical rainforest that predates the gardens themselves, dominated by Dipterocarpaceae trees including the critically endangered Anthoshorea gratissima, Vatica pauciflora and Vatica ridleyana; together with the larger Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, it forms one of only two tropical rainforests surviving within a major city, the other being Tijuca Forest in Rio de Janeiro.

The Tyersall Learning Forest, Symphony Lake and the Shaw Foundation Symphony Stage

In 2009 the government announced a Tyersall extension that added 18 hectares to the gardens, almost quadrupling their original 1859 footprint; completed in 2018 as the Learning Forest, it added a Forest Conservation Interpretive Centre, a Natural History Art Gallery housed in century-old colonial buildings, thematic walks through giant trees and a conservation collection of rare fruit and nut species, a bamboo garden and a stormwater detention pond with capacity equivalent to roughly 15 Olympic-size swimming pools that doubles as a flood-control feature for the Orchard Road shopping belt. The gardens’ three lakes — Symphony Lake, Eco-Lake and Swan Lake (the latter excavated in 1866) — anchor public life on the site: the Shaw Foundation Symphony Stage hosts free weekend concerts by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and the Singapore Chinese Orchestra, and a Frédéric Chopin statue was unveiled just south of Symphony Lake on 10 October 2008. The upgraded Botany Centre brings together the Library of Botany and Horticulture, the Singapore Herbarium (international acronym Herb. SING, holding 750,000 specimens) and orchid breeding and micropropagation laboratories, while the Green Pavilion showcases Singapore’s first green roof. The Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden, opened in 2007 and named for a Jewish-Singaporean philanthropist, became the largest children’s garden in Asia after its 2017 expansion.

The 2015 UNESCO Inscription and Singapore’s Role in Tropical Plant Conservation

The gardens submitted an official UNESCO nomination in January 2014, with the dossier — a 700-page document — compiled over one and a half years under the National Heritage Board’s preservation of sites and monuments division together with then-director Dr Nigel Taylor, who had also contributed to Kew’s own 2000–2003 World Heritage bid. On 16 May 2015 the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) recommended inscription without reservation, the strongest possible verdict, noting that the gardens demonstrate the evolution of a British tropical colonial garden into a modern, world-class botanical institution and a place of conservation and education. On 4 July 2015 in Bonn, the 39th session of the World Heritage Committee unanimously endorsed the nomination, making the Singapore Botanic Gardens the first tropical — and only the third — botanic garden on the World Heritage List. Today the gardens are managed by the National Parks Board (NParks) along four strategic lines: the Garden City vision, horticulture, taxonomic and biodiversity research, and recreation and education; entry to the gardens is free, with only the National Orchid Garden charging admission, and the site remains a working tropical plant research institute as well as a national horticultural landmark.

Official Site: https://www.nparks.gov.sg/sbg