Why is the Botanic Garden of exceptional significance?
The Royal Botanic Garden Sydney Conservation Management Plan categorises the Garden as an ‘exceptional national cultural landscape’. Historic significance: The site has been under continuous cultivation since European settlement in 1788 and a botanic garden since 1816. It contains the largest and most diverse continuously cultivated plant collection in Australia. The overall form and content of the Garden’s landscape as well as the organisation of the plant collections are the largely intact legacy of the early Directors of the Garden, notably Charles Fraser, Richard and Allan Cunningham, Charles Moore and Joseph Maiden. Under these directors, living and preserved plant collections were acquired that have provided and continue to provide the foundation on which knowledge of Australian plants has been built. The Garden is a living museum showcasing almost two centuries of taxonomy and horticultural botany on Australian native plants, in particular rainforest trees of NSW and Queensland,
