Missouri Botanical Garden


The Missouri Botanical Garden is a botanical garden located at 4344 Shaw Boulevard in St. Louis, Missouri. It is also known informally as Shaw's Garden for founder and philanthropist Henry Shaw. Its herbarium, with more than 7.5 million specimens, is the second largest in North America, behind that of the New York Botanical Garden. Its Peter H. Raven Library contains 85% coverage of all literature ever published on systematic botany and plant taxonomy. The Index Herbariorum code assigned to the herbarium is MO and it is used when citing housed specimens.
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History

The Missouri Botanical Garden began development by 1850 and was created by Henry Shaw. Shaw, a British immigrant, moved to St. Louis in 1819. The garden was developed on land that previously belonged to Shaw, and began construction in 1855. The garden officially opened in 1859. It had informally been referred to as Shaw's Garden for a number of years since its opening. Shaw later died in 1889 and donated the conservatory to the city.
In 1959, the conservatory began construction on the Climatron. The Climatron is a Geodesic greenhouse that is intended to simulate the climate of a rainforest. The greenhouse replaced the former Palm House, which was demolished to build it. It opened in 1960 as one of the first Geodesic-domed greenhouses. The garden was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 19, 1971 and was designated a National Historic Landmark on December 8, 1976.Image:Climatron, Missouri Botanical Gardens.jpg|thumb|The Climatron greenhouse at the Missouri Botanical Garden simulates the climate of a rainforest for conservational and educational purposes.In 2024, the Tower Grove House was added to the Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. Records show that in 1855, four people enslaved by Shaw escaped the house and crossed the Mississippi River with help from Mary Meachum. A woman, Esther, and her three children were captured immediately after crossing. Shaw placed a bounty on Jim Kennerly, who had escaped.

Peter H. Raven Library

Founded by Henry Shaw with the Missouri Botanical Garden in 1859, the Peter H. Raven Library general collection contains more than 160,300 items of plant taxonomic literature.
CollectionPeriodDonorsSizeRef.
Sturtevant Pre-Linnaean1474 – 1753Edward Lewis Sturtevant1,000
LinnaeanCarl Linnaeus900
Post-1753 Rare BookPost-1753Charles Darwin, George Engelmann3,000
Folio1,000
SteereWilliam C. Steere3,000

Cultural festivals

The garden is a place for many annual cultural festivals, such as the Japanese Festival and the Chinese Culture Days by the St. Louis Chinese Culture Days Committee. During this time, there are showcases of the culture's botanics as well as cultural arts, crafts, music and food. The Japanese Festival features sumo wrestling, taiko drumming, koma-mawashi top spinning, and kimono fashion shows. The garden is known for its bonsai growing, which can be seen all year round but is highlighted during the multiple Asian festivals.Image:Missouri Botanical Garden.jpg|thumb|Tower Grove House seen here behind a hedge maze

Additional projects

Butterfly House

Missouri Botanical Garden also operates the Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House in Chesterfield. The Butterfly House includes an indoor butterfly conservatory as well as an outdoor butterfly garden.

EarthWays Center

The EarthWays Center is a group at the Missouri Botanical Garden that provides resources on and educates the public about green practices, renewable energy, energy efficiency, and other sustainability matters.

Shaw Nature Reserve

The Shaw Nature Reserve was started by the Missouri Botanical Garden in 1925 as a place to store plants away from the pollution of the city. The air in St. Louis later cleared up, and the reserve has continued to be open to the public for enjoyment, research, and education ever since. The reserve is located in Gray Summit, Missouri, away from the city.

The Plant List

The Plant List is an Internet encyclopedia project to compile a comprehensive list of botanical nomenclature, created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and the Missouri Botanical Garden. The Plant List has 1,040,426 scientific plant names of species rank, of which 298,900 are accepted species names. In addition, the list has 620 plant families and 16,167 plant genera.

Living Earth Collaborative

In September 2017 the Missouri Botanical Garden teamed up with the St. Louis Zoo and Washington University in St. Louis in a conservation effort known as the Living Earth Collaborative. The collaborative, run by Washington University scientist Jonathan Losos, seeks to promote further understanding of the ways humans can help to preserve the varied natural environments that allow plants, animals and microbes to survive and thrive.

Henry Shaw Medal

The Henry Shaw Medal has been awarded since 1893. It honors those who have made a significant contribution to the Missouri Botanical Garden, botanical research, horticulture, conservation, or the museum community.
Recipients:

Publications

Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden
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