Penang Botanical Garden

In 1794, the East India Company appointed Christopher Smith as botanist to Penang to establish the spice gardens on Penang Island. Smith, who had originally trained at Kew Gardens. That year itself he planted planted a small garden a size of "20 orlongs" in the middle Ayer Itam valley and then another larger plot of "300 orlongs" at a place called Sungai Keluang.

In 1796, Smith made a trip to the Moluccas, to overseas the Garden there as superintendent of their botanic gardens. It was here that he collected specimens of nutmeg and clove for planting in the Penang Gardens.

 By 1800 there were some 1,300 plants in the two Penang gardens. Howver the Sungai Keluang plot was more involved in growing pepper plants. Same year, more plants arrived in Penang from Ambon island - 15,000 clove and 1,500 nutmeg trees together with canary nuts and sugar palms. The farms in the Ayer Itam gardens and Residency were getting very large, Smith was instructed by Lieutenant Governor Leith to return to supervise this enterprise. By 1804, his farms had 80 "coolies"
By 1805, Smith was appointed superintendent of the Botanic Gardens, but he died unexpectedly in George Town soon afterwards.

Governor Colonel Robert T. Farquhar sold the Gardens' contents at 12 days' notice and replanted elsewhere by various purchasers.

In 1822, the Governor of Penang, William Edward Phillips, established a new garden the second time around, urged by Sir Stamford Raffles. Penang Free School headmaster and amateur botanist, George Porter, who once was a member of the Calcutta Gardens staff to oversees the development of the new garden. This was the so-called Kitchen Gardens and 2 failed attempts

Finally in third attempts Botanical  Gardens were established in 1884 from an old quarry site, under the supervision of Charles Curtis, who was the first superintendent, making it one of the oldest botanic gardens built by the British in a colonial settlement. He transformed a lush valley in an old granite quarry into the pesent Botanical Gardens at the foot of a tall waterfall. Even today, Penang Botanic Gardens maintain their original English-style design, with large open lawns hemmed in by hills covered with viridian tropical rainforest.

The original colonial interest here was of course spices, but Charles Curtis was also interested in Penang’s native plants. He contributed immensely to the discovery and classification of Penang’s flora, and introduced many plants in these Botanic Gardens. There is a herbarium collection of over 4000 samples, and over 10,000 species of plants that live naturally in the gardens.
 

Part 1 - Pictures from the past

Pix# 1 The approach road to the garden

Even at that time, his area of the island had received priority in development. You see this house, it was venetually dismantled. The whole area leveled up and made into a camp site for scout Jamboree

Pix# 2 Moon Gate & its Legend

The Moon Gate, a distinctive landmark within the Penang Botanical Garden, was built in 1930. It is a circular gate that is traditionally used in Chinese gardens as a symbol of completeness and unity. The Moon Gate was built to commemorate the visit of the Governor of the Straits Settlements, Sir Hugh Clifford, to the park

Or another version!

The "Moon Gate" is actually the entrance to a huge Mansion tugged away in the slopes of the hill. Interpreting the writing on the plaque at the gate it says simply translated " Yong Yi". connected to the Analects of Confucious  Here [Yi] is the name of a river in Shan Don Province in northeast China. Yu Yi means to take a bath in the Yi river, and Yong Yi probably means singing praises of the river Yi.

This mansion is one of 11 famous mansions of Penang as mentioned in the Penang Gazeteer by visiting Chinese scholar Li Jun who stayed in Penang for 3 months in 1891.

So far, there is no full agreement to whom this mansion at the Moon Gate belong. Some sources  attributed it to Cheah Chen Eok, who also owned the Combe Hill bungalow in Gelugor. In the first place, there is no traces as to where the Mansion was once located.

One of Cheah Chen Eok's notable legacies is his opulent mansion, which is located in Penang, Malaysia. The mansion is often referred to as the "Opium Merchant Mansion" or the "Cheah Kongsi Mansion"

This picture is that of the Moon Gate with original sidewalls taken in 1975.

Pix# 3 The way to an ancient mansion

A very well made stairways made with proper granite locks leads to where the mansion is supposing was!  This track is a very popular "Moongate 5" tracks view point. Seasoned trekkers use the trail rather taking the well laid steps. Showed a lot of effort and money spent to build the access to the Bungalow

Part 2 - Entrance to Waterfall Garden

Pix# 15 Series of old pictures to show entrance

Entrance over time A mini-Van & a street vendor

Pix# 16 Picture of main gate No.2

Entrance pix No. 3 - Five O'clock Tree with plenty of foliages of the tree - show it was still healthy

Pix# 17  Picture of main gate No.3

Bicycle was still allowed

Pix# 18 Picture of main gate No.4

The same aged-old tree seen in times closer to modern days

Pix# 19 Picture of main gate No.5

Sorry! This pix slightly blur but each old picture is equally precious

Part 3 - Botanical Garden - Olden days

After starting with pictures of the entrance, let's see some of the old pictures of the garden itself - harvested from the internet

Pix# 20 Must be early days of construction

Hut for workers and elephant to help in heavier duty

Pix# 21 Finished Botanical Garden

Car seen inside the Garden

Pix# 22 More scenes of the Botanical Garden

Continue with more pictures more or less same era

Pix# 23 More scenes of the Botanical Garden

This picture came with a date "1900", from the dressings of the picnickers could verify a little bit

Pix # 24 More scenes

Old pictures with attempts to introduce colors. Interesting pictures. "Coolies" obviously Indian working. near centre watch carefully the "real" waterfall could be seen. One of the couple of spots within the compound at an angle where the waterfalls could be visually detected

Pix# 25 Horse cart for ferrying visitors.

Without sign of owners around, assume that this cold be Horse cart meant to ferry visitors around the park. A scene prior to the motor vehicle days

Pix # 26 Botanical garden & Monkeys

A rather old picture, more likely pre-second world war and early days of automobile. Here the iconic Long-tailed macaques made the presence

Pix# 27 Waterfalls of Botanical Garden

While this place is officially named as Botanical Garden, in the old days, we called this place "Waterfalls Garden". This is a very appropriate picture taken in 1920 but enhanced to show the waterfalls. First the real Waterfalls, white patch off center right top and second the perceived man made Waterfall in the center of the garden seen in the center of this picture. This scene cannot be repeated or seen in present days as the volume of water in the upper falls is not large enough for the white image to be spotted from afar

Pix# 28 The "Real" Waterfalls

A old Black & White pictures from the past. These waterfalls a few of them at the same place still exist today way high up on the slope above the reservior

Pix# 29 A man-made drop

Within the compound of the garden and another one just outside its perimeters fencing. They are still hailed as Waterfalls but it is not because of these waterfalls that the Garden got its name

Pix# 30 Cycle to Waterfall Garden

That was a hobby of ours in our Form 5 years taking time to cycle to Waterfall Garden on the pre text of doing our revision for the exam

Pix# 31 Botanical Garden Reservoir

Used to be the no.1 scenic sight - where many pictures were taken with this iconic setting

As I was preparing the pages I always wanted o add in my personal experiences with the topic. Not every time I am privileged enough to gather personal pictures. For this topic of Botanical Garden I found some pictures of relevance which I have included and they are:-

# 32 Our contribution to this page 1

Everyone go to the Botanical garden for a reason, Most taking a picture to remember its exceptional beauty

Pix# 33 Our contribution to this page 2

Another spot with flora to mark our visit

Pix# 34 Jungle Trekking from Botanical Garden

As I said there are many reasons to visit the botanical garden plus many uses that this place can offer. In this Y2K year 1999, we at last found the trail that we could do a long hike from Town to Batu Feringgi. Of course this long trail was not meant for everybody

Pix# 35 Track beside the Waterfall

Thinking of reaching the "Waterfall" without permission. Well, you cannot but you could at least get near to it by hiking up the Rooted Track

Pix# 36 Morning Exercise

It was an easy but as well as tough walk in the Park. Depends on who's talking. Certainly a very good way to do your morning exercise

Pix# 37 Community Services

All the way up and all the way down you would never feel lonely because it was so well patronized. And of course the welcome rest stop is beyond description

Pix# 37A  The present day Water Lily pond

Not that many visitor reached there! Only nature Lovers

Pix# 37B  Added some not-so-old pictures

This was the "Waterfall" outside the original Botanical Ggarden

Part 4 -Present Day scene

Pix# 38 Today's version replacing the first picture on this page

I start this section with the same introduction  - the Park administration building. On the road before reaching the front gate of the Botanical Garden. I wrote too soon, with development this semi-urban spot no longer relevant for scout activities. they found more appropriate places. So this spot was once more rebuilt

Pix # 39 Car Park area for visitors

Nice spacious modern car park. Gone are the days where we could take our cars inside the compound