Koishikawa Botanical Gardens: July 25, 2010

Tokyo has a botanical garden in its central part. It is Koishikawa Botanical Gardens.

The garden’s history is long. It was originally developed as a physic garden of the Tokugawa government in the Edo era in the 17th century. The operation was succeeded by the University of Tokyo in the Meiji Era and it now belongs to the University.

There are about 4000 plants in the gardens. Many tall trees as well as beautiful flowers are planted. It is nature rich. I did not feel that I was in central Tokyo when I walked in the gardens.

The reason of my visit today was to see a titan arum. The plant is the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world. It opened its flowers for the first time in about 20years (since 1991) in the gardens.

The flower stays only two days. It smells so bad when it opens its flowers.

Unfortunately, the central pole of the plant fell down (which means the end of the “opening” of the flowers) about 10 minutes before my arrival to the gardens according to the staff. Still I found how large the flowers were. Many people were taking pictures. It did not smell bad as the peak of the opening of the flowers was over.

Another famous plant in the gardens is Newton’s apple. The tree has been raised from the branch taken from the original Newton’s apple in the U.K.

Mendel’s grape trees are also in the gardens.


Map: Koishikawa Botanical Gardens