National Botanical Garden of Georgia

Waterfall, Tbilisi Botanical Garden, Georgia

The National Botanical Garden of Georgia ( ka, საქართველოს ეროვნული ბოტანიკური ბაღი), formerly the Tbilisi Botanical Garden ( ka, თბილისის ბოტანიკური ბაღი), is located in

Tbilisi Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Kura River with a population of approximately 1.5 million p ...

, capital of

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

, and lies in the Tsavkisis-Tskali Gorge on the southern foothills of the Sololaki Range (a spur of the Trialeti Range). It occupies an area of 161 hectares and possesses a collection of over 4,500 taxonomic groups. Its history spans more than three centuries. It was first described in 1671 by the French traveller

Jean Chardin Jean Chardin (16 November 1643 – 5 January 1713), born Jean-Baptiste Chardin, and also known as Sir John Chardin, was a French jeweller and traveller whose ten-volume book ''The Travels of Sir John Chardin'' is regarded as one of the finest ...

as royal gardens which might have been founded at least in 1625 and were variably referred to as "fortress gardens" or "Seidabad gardens" later in history. The gardens appear in the records by

Joseph Pitton de Tournefort Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (5 June 165628 December 1708) was a French botanist, notable as the first to make a clear definition of the concept of genus for plants. Botanist Charles Plumier was his pupil and accompanied him on his voyages. Lif ...

(1701) and on the Tbilisi, map composed by Prince

Vakhushti Vakhushti ( ka, ვახუშტი, tr) (1696–1757) was a Georgian royal prince ('' batonishvili''), geographer, historian and cartographer. His principal historical and geographic works, '' Description of the Kingdom of Georgia'' and the '' ...

(1735). Pillaged in the

Persian invasion Persian invasion may refer to: * Persian invasion of Scythia, 513 BC * Greco-Persian Wars The Greco-Persian Wars (also often called the Persian Wars) were a series of conflicts between the Achaemenid Empire and Greek city-states that started ...

of 1795, the garden was revived in the early 19th century and officially established as the Tiflis

Botanical Garden A botanical garden or botanic gardenThe terms ''botanic'' and ''botanical'' and ''garden'' or ''gardens'' are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word ''botanic'' is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens, an ...

in 1845. From 1888 on, when a

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