Kebun Raya Cibodas (KRC or the Cibodas Botanical Gardens) is
a 125-hectares botanical garden located approximately 1,300-1,425 meters on the
slopes of Mount Gede, 23 kilometers to the northwest of the township of Cianjur.
The gardens are in the Cibodas
subdistrict of West Java, Indonesia, around 100 kilometers from Jakarta. They
were founded in 1862 by the Dutch botanist Johannes Elias Teysjmann as an
extension of the Bogor Botanical Gardens. The gardens are the first place that
Cinchona trees were grown in Indonesia for quinine production. A few years
after Cinchona trees were planted in the gardens, some of the plants had to be
transferred to another more suitable place. Plants which are exotic plants to
Indonesia, such as Eucalyptus from Australia, Conifers from Europe and others
have been planted in the area so there is now a wide collection from various
parts of the world in the Cibodas Gardens.. Recently, a rose collection has
also been in the process of development.
The gardens have a collection of almost 6,000 specimens,
representing over 1,200 species, and a glasshouse collection of over 4,000
specimens,including 350 species of cacti and succulents and 360 species of
orchids.
