Dry Zone Botanic Gardens – Mirijjawila
Mirijjawila Dry Zone Botanic Gardens (MDBG) are the first botanic gardens in Sri Lanka designed by local experts and the first botanic gardens created after Henarathgoda Botanic Gardens which was established 130 years ago. Dry Zone Botanic Gardens is the largest botanic garden in Sri Lanka in terms of extent and the extent is 300 acres. This is the first botanic gardens in Sri Lanka created to conserve dry zone plants ex-situ. There were several objectives for establishing the Mirijjawila Dry Zone Botanic Gardens, Hambantota.
MDBG located in Hambantota District has two entrances; one facing the Colombo – Kataragama new main road and the other the Beragama Road from Sooriyawewa – Hambantota main road. Construction works of the botanic garden was begun 20th July 2006 and it was opened for public in 14th November in 2013 concurrently to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGUM) held in Colombo.
MDBG is managed by the Department of National Botanic Gardens, Peradeniya which comes under the Ministry of Tourism. There are 26 avenues in which a single plant species is planted on both sides of each avenue and MDBG is the only botanic garden which has the largest number of avenues in Sri Lanka. MDBG is the first and only botanic gardens in Sri Lanka which introduced QR codes in plant name boards to facilitate visitors and students to access more plant information such as life form, local distribution, origin and more information of plants other than scientific name, common names and family in Sinhala, Tamil and English. Plant information can be accessed through dzbgh.blogspot.com
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