Henarathgoda Botanical Garden Henarathgoda Botanical Garden , also known as Gampaha Botanical Garden (Sinhala: ගම්පහ හෙනරත්ගොඩ උද්භිද උද්යානය), is one of the botanical gardens in Sri Lanka. It is located in Gampaha, about 30 km northwest of Colombo. Established in 1876 for the reception of the original Para Rubber from Brazil, the garden was the first nursery for the development of the rubber industry not only in Sri Lanka but elsewhere in Asia as well (Gunawardena, 2003). The garden is administrated by the Department of Agriculture. History
During the 19th century, British rulers were trying to establish rubber-yielding plants in their colonies in Asia. They experimented with various types of rubber plants such as Para Rubber, Gutta-percha, Panama Rubber, Balatta and Lagos Rubber in India and Ceylon and found out that Ceylon has similar environmental conditions as that of the Amazon. In 1876, some of the rubber seeds collected from the Amazon forest were imported from the Royal Botanical Garden in Kew and planted …
