Edinburgh Botanical Gardens

Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
Non Departmental Public Body overview
The Palm House in the Royal Botanic Gardens.
Formed	1670 (in Holyrood Park) 1820 (moved to current Inverleith site)
Preceding agencies	1. the country's first physic garden, near Holyrood Abbey, in Holyrood Park 2. a site to the east of the Nor Loch, now built over by Waverley Station 3. a site off Leith Walk on the road to Leith
Type	Executive Non Departmental Public Body Registered charity (number SC007983)
Jurisdiction	Scottish Government
Headquarters	20a Inverleith Row, Edinburgh, EH3 5LR
Employees	250
Annual budget	£12.3 million (2010-11)
Minister responsible	Roseanna Cunningham, Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform
Non Departmental Public Body executive	Simon Milne, Regius Keeper, Chief Executive Officer and Accountable Officer
Parent department	Economy Directorates
Child agencies	Benmore Botanic Garden, Argyll Dawyck Botanic Garden, Borders Logan Botanic Garden, Galloway
Website	www.rbge.org.uk

The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) is a scientific centre for the study of plants, their diversity and conservation, as well as a popular tourist attraction. Founded in 1670 as a physic garden to grow medicinal plants, today it occupies four sites across Scotland — Edinburgh, Dawyck, Logan and Benmore — each with its own specialist collection. The RBGE's living collection consists of more than 13,302 plant species, (34,422 accessions) whilst the herbarium contains in excess of 3 million preserved specimens.

The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is an executive non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government. The Edinburgh site is the main garden and the headquarters of the public body, which is led by Regius Keeper, Simon Milne.

The Edinburgh botanic garden was founded in 1670 at St. Anne's Yard, near Holyrood Palace, by Dr. Robert Sibbald and Dr. Andrew Balfour. It is the second oldest botanic garden in Britain after Oxford's. The plant collection used as the basis of the garden was the private collection of Sir Patrick Murray, 2nd Lord Elibank, moved from his home at Livingston Peel in 1672 following his death in September 1671 The original site was "obtained of John Brown, gardener of the North Yardes in the Holyrood Abby, ane inclosure of some 40 foot of measure every way. By what we procured from Levingstone and other gardens, we made a collection of eight or nine hundred plants yr." This site proved too small, and in 1676 grounds belonging to Trinity Hospital were leased by Balfour from the City Council: this second garden was sited just to the east of the Nor Loch, down from the High Street. John Ainslie's 1804 map shows it as the "Old Physick Garden" to the east of the North Bridge. The site was subsequently occupied by tracks of the North British Railway, and a plaque at platform 11 of the Waverley railway station marks its location.

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Wikipedia