Missouri Botanical Garden

The Missouri Botanical Garden is a botanical garden located at 4344 Shaw Boulevard in St. Louis, Missouri. It is also known informally as Shaw's Garden for founder and philanthropist Henry Shaw. Its herbarium, with more than 7.5 million specimens,^[3] is the second largest in North America, behind that of the New York Botanical Garden. Its Peter H. Raven Library contains 85% coverage of all literature ever published on systematic botany and plant taxonomy.^[4] The Index Herbariorum code assigned to the herbarium is MO^[5] and it is used when citing housed specimens.

Missouri Botanical Garden
Type	Botanical garden
Location	St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.
Coordinates	38°36′45″N 90°15′35″W
Opened	1859
Website	www.missouribotanicalgarden.org
Missouri Botanical Garden
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark District
Architect	Multiple
Architectural style	Late Victorian
NRHP reference No.	71001065[1]
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	November 19, 1971
Designated NHLD	December 8, 1976[2]

History

The Missouri Botanical Garden began development by 1850 and was created by Henry Shaw. Shaw, a British immigrant, moved to St. Louis in 1819. The garden was developed on land that previously belonged to Shaw, and began construction in 1855. The garden officially opened in 1859. It had informally been referred to as Shaw's Garden for a number of years since its opening. Shaw later died in 1889 and donated the conservatory to the city.^[6]

In 1959, the conservatory began construction on the Climatron. The Climatron is a Geodesic greenhouse that is intended to simulate the climate of a rainforest. The greenhouse replaced the former Palm House, which was demolished to build it. It opened in 1960 as one of the first Geodesic-domed greenhouses.^[7] The garden was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 19, 1971 and was designated a National Historic Landmark on December 8, 1976.^[2]

The Climatron greenhouse at the Missouri Botanical Garden simulates the climate of a rainforest for conservational and educational purposes.

In 2024, the Tower Grove House was added to the Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. Records show that in 1855, four people enslaved by Shaw escaped the house and crossed the Mississippi River with help from Mary Meachum. A woman, Esther, and her three children were captured immediately after crossing. Shaw placed a bounty on Jim Kennerly, who had escaped.^[8]

Peter H. Raven Library

Stereoscopic view of statuary and flowers at Shaw's Garden by Truman Ward Ingersoll

Founded by Henry Shaw with the Missouri Botanical Garden in 1859, the Peter H. Raven Library general collection contains more than 160,300 items of plant taxonomic literature.^[9]

Collection	Period	Donors	Size	Ref.
Sturtevant Pre-Linnaean	1474 – 1753	Edward Lewis Sturtevant	1,000	[9]
Linnaean		Carl Linnaeus	900
Post-1753 Rare Book	Post-1753	Charles Darwin, George Engelmann	3,000
Folio			1,000
Steere		William C. Steere	3,000

The Kresko Victorian Garden at the Missouri Botanical Garden, a highly manicured garden.

Cultural festivals

The garden is a place for many annual cultural festivals, such as the Japanese Festival and the Chinese Culture Days by the St. Louis Chinese Culture Days Committee.^[10] During this time, there are showcases of the culture's botanics as well as cultural arts, crafts, music and food. The Japanese Festival features sumo wrestling, taiko drumming, koma-mawashi top spinning, and kimono fashion shows. The garden is known for its bonsai growing, which can be seen all year round but is highlighted during the multiple Asian festivals.

Tower Grove House seen here behind a hedge maze

Gardens

Name	Opened	Notes	Ref.
Tower Grove House	1849	Designed by George I. Barnett in the Italianate style	[11]
Victory of Science over Ignorance	1859	Marble statue by Carlo Nicoli, a copy of the original
Linnean House	1882	Originally Shaw's orangery, in the late 1930s converted to house mostly camellias
Gladney Rose Garden	1915	Circular rose garden with arbors
Climatron and Reflecting Pools	1960	Designed by architect and engineer Thomas C. Howard; lowland rain forest with approximately 1500 plants
English Woodland Garden	1976	Aconite, azaleas, bluebells, dogwoods, hosta, trillium, and others beneath the tree canopy
Seiwa-en Japanese Garden	1977	Wet strolling garden with lawns and path set around a 4-acre (1.6 ha) central lake, designed by Koichi Kawana; the largest Japanese Garden in North America
Grigg Nanjing Friendship Chinese Garden	1995	Designed by architect Yong Pan; features (gifts from sister city Nanjing) a moon gate, lotus gate, pavilion, and Chinese scholar's rocks from Lake Tai
Blanke Boxwood Garden	1996	Walled parterre with a fine boxwood collection
Strassenfest German Garden	2000	Flora native to Germany and Central Europe and a bust of botanist and Henry Shaw's scientific advisor George Engelmann
Biblical garden		Date palm, pomegranate, fig and olive trees, caper, mint, citron and other plants mentioned in the Bible

Additional projects

Butterfly House

Main article: Butterfly House, Missouri Botanical Garden

Missouri Botanical Garden also operates the Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House in Chesterfield. The Butterfly House includes an 8,000-square-foot (740 m²) indoor butterfly conservatory as well as an outdoor butterfly garden.

EarthWays Center

The EarthWays Center is a group at the Missouri Botanical Garden that provides resources on and educates the public about green practices, renewable energy, energy efficiency, and other sustainability matters.^[12]

Shaw Nature Reserve

Main article: Shaw Nature Reserve

The Shaw Nature Reserve was started by the Missouri Botanical Garden in 1925 as a place to store plants away from the pollution of the city. The air in St. Louis later cleared up, and the reserve has continued to be open to the public for enjoyment, research, and education ever since. The 2,400-acre (9.7 km²) reserve is located in Gray Summit, Missouri, 35 miles (56 km) away from the city.^[13]

The Plant List

The Plant List is an Internet encyclopedia project to compile a comprehensive list of botanical nomenclature, created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and the Missouri Botanical Garden.^[14] The Plant List has 1,040,426 scientific plant names of species rank, of which 298,900 are accepted species names. In addition, the list has 620 plant families and 16,167 plant genera.^[15]

Living Earth Collaborative

In September 2017 the Missouri Botanical Garden teamed up with the St. Louis Zoo and Washington University in St. Louis in a conservation effort known as the Living Earth Collaborative.^[16] The collaborative, run by Washington University scientist Jonathan Losos, seeks to promote further understanding of the ways humans can help to preserve the varied natural environments that allow plants, animals and microbes to survive and thrive.^[17]

Gallery

• 
  Site plan, as of 1974–1977
• 
  View of Seiwa-en, the largest Japanese garden in North America
• 
  Eight Bridges (yatsu-hashi) design in the Seiwa-en
• 
  Henry Shaw's mausoleum at the Missouri Botanical Garden, with a glass art piece by Dale Chihuly in front of it as of 2023
• 
  Gladney Rose Garden in 2023
• 
  Swift Family Garden in 2023. The Linnean House is at the right.
• 
  Fountain in the garden
• 
  Statue of George Washington Carver
• 
  Part of the children's area
• 
  Part of the children's water-play area
• 
  The Missouri Botanical Garden's Prairie Garden in 2023. It includes stone paths and metal animal silhouettes.
• 
  English Woodland Garden in 2023

Henry Shaw Medal

The Henry Shaw Medal has been awarded since 1893. It honors those who have made a significant contribution to the Missouri Botanical Garden, botanical research, horticulture, conservation, or the museum community.

Recipients:

• 1893 J. Dorner & Son
• 1897 Luther Armstrong
• 1899 Henry Clinkaberry
• 1904 Three medals given to World’s Fair participants
• 1907 W. A. Manda
• 1935 Jeremiah Coleman
• 1978 Roberto Incer Barquero
• 1979 Julian Steyermark
• 1980 Anne L. Lehmann
• 1981 B. A. Krukoff
• 1982 Paul Kohl and S. Dillon Ripley
• 1983 Robert Hyland
• 1984 Robert Brookings Smith
• 1985 Marlin and Carol Perkins
• 1986 William L. Brown
• 1987 Koichi Kawana
• 1988 Ghillean Tolmie Prance
• 1989 Joseph H. Bascom, John H. Biggs, David M. Gates, Henry Hitchcock, Robert Brookings Smith, Tom K. Smith, Jr., C. C. Johnson Spink, Frits W. Went, Harry E. Wuertenbaecher, Jr., and Frans Stafleu
• 1990 William D. Ruckelshaus
• 1991 José Sarukhán Kermez
• 1992 Compton James Tucker
• 1993 Robert E. Kresko, Armen L. Takhtajan, O. Sage Wightman III, and Edward O. Wilson
• 1994 Joseph and Nesta Ewan
• 1995 Marlina Curry, E. Desmond, and Mary Ann Lee
• 1996 Peter H. Raven and John K. Wallace, Jr.
• 1997 William McKibben
• 1998 John Browne, William H. T. Bush, Sydney M. Shoenberg, Jr., and M. S. Swaminathan
• 1999 Liz Claiborne, Art Ortenberg, and Margaret B. Grigg
• 2000 Rachel Lambert Mellon and David W. Kemper
• 2001 Calestous Juma
• 2002 William Conway and Lucianna Gladney Ross
• 2003 Dr. William H. Danforth and Stephen F. Brauer
• 2004 Her Grace the Duchess of Devonshire and Jack E. Thomas, Jr.
• 2005 National Geographic Society
• 2006 Jack Dangermond, Geoffrey L. Rausch, and Scott C. Schnuck
• 2007 Jack Jennings and Evelyn E. Newman
• 2008 Thomas Lovejoy
• 2009 Michael A. Dirr and Nicholas L. Reding
• 2010 The Honorable Christopher S. Bond
• 2011 Her Royal Highness Princess Basma bint Ali
• 2012 Arnold W. Donald
• 2013 David Bramwell
• 2014 W. Stephen Maritz
• 2017 Lelia J. Farr
• 2020 Viscount Phillippe de Spoelberch
• 2022 David M. Hollo
• 2023 Stephen Blackmore
• 2024 Peter Wyse Jackson
• 2025 Rhett Ayers Butler and Michael K. Stern

Publications

• Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden
• Novon: A Journal for Botanical Nomenclature

See also

• Gardens portal

• List of botanical gardens and arboretums in the United States
• Peter F. Stevens, a biologist working in the Missouri Botanical Garden
• List of National Historic Landmarks in Missouri
• National Register of Historic Places listings in St. Louis south and west of downtown