Established in 1859, Singapore's Botanic Gardens has served as a park for Singaporeans and visitors, a scientific institution, and a testing ground for tropical plantation crops. Each function has its own story, while the Gardens also fuel an underlying narrative of the juncture of administrative authority and the natural world. Created to help exploit natural resources for the British Empire, the Gardens became contested ground in conflicts involving administrators and scientists that reveal shifting understandings of power, science and nature in Singapore and in Britain. This continued after independence, when the Gardens featured in the "e;greening"e; of the nation-state, and became Singapore's first World Heritage Site. Positioning the Singapore Botanic Gardens alongside the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and gardens in India, Ceylon, Mauritius and the West Indies, this book tells the story of nature's colony-a place where plants were collected, classified and cultivated to change our understanding of the region and world.

With more than 150 years of history, the 74-hectare Singapore Botanic Gardens holds a unique and significant place in the history of Singapore and the region. It was responsible in its early days for the introduction, experimentation and promotion of crop plants, including the rubber tree; it also spearheaded orchid breeding and started a world-renowned orchid hybridisation programme. Today, it not only continues to play a vital role in the horticultural and botanical fields, the Singapore Botanic Gardens has become a fixture of the cultural landscape and the national identity Images of Singapore Botanic Gardenstakes the reader on an enchanting photographic tour of the gardens' varied landscapes. Highlights include the National Orchid Garden, home of the world's foremost collection of orchids; Jacob Ballas Children's Garden, the first children's garden in Asia; a lush Rainforest trail boasting rare tropical species; picture-perfect water features such as Swan Lake, Eco Lake and Symphony Lake; and some of the best-preserved specimens of colonial architecture in Singapore. On 4 July 2015, the Singapore Botanic Gardens has been inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site at the 39th session of the World Heritage Committee in Bonn, Germany. The Gardens is the first and only tropical botanic garden on the UNESCO's World Heritage List. This compact volume, packed with over 250 photographs, vividly captures the spirit of Singapore Botanic Gardens in all its glory.

- 40 original illustrations- Handy guide that names and include features of popular local plants and flowers- Makes a great gift or travel souvenir- Includes author's trademark whimsical touch

How has Singapore's environment and location in a zone of extraordinary biodiversity influenced the economic, political, social, and intellectual history of the island since the early 19th century? What are the antecedents to Singapore's image of itself as a City in a Garden? Grounding the story of Singapore within an understanding of its environment opens the way to an account of the past that is more than a story of trade, immigration, and nation-building. Each of the chapters in this volume focusing on topics ranging from tigers and plantations to trade in exotic animals and the greening of the city, and written by botanists, historians, anthropologists, and naturalists examines how humans have interacted with and understood the natural environment on a small island in Southeast Asia over the past 200 years, and conversely how this environment has influenced humans. Between the chapters are travelers' accounts and primary documents that provide eyewitness descriptions of the events examined in the text. In this regard, Nature Contained: Environmental Histories of Singapore provides new insights into the Singaporean past, and reflects much of the diversity, and dynamism, of environmental history globally.

The Botanic Garden takes readers from tropical forests to deserts, and from alpine mountains to English country gardens, as it tours the most magnificent botanic havens in the world.

This book documents through first-hand experience and academic research the historical, cultural and economic interactions affecting land use in Singapore. Offering a unique study of nostalgia in Singaporean heritage, it discusses the subjective nostalgic meanings and interpretations that users of peripheral, heritage and green spaces in Singapore create and maintain, through a combination of informal observations and interactions combined with research into local history and heritage. It addresses the subjective meaning-making processes of individuals within the larger theoretical frameworks that structure understandings of changing land use and economical changes which impact on contemporary cityscapes, centered around peripheral and de-privileged areas of Singapore’s economic development.