Peradeniya Botanical Gardens

The Royal Botanic Gardens at Peradeniya occupy about 147 acres inside a bend of the Mahaweli River, some 5.5 kilometres west of Kandy, at roughly 460 metres elevation. Palm avenues, immense specimen trees, orchids, and dense tropical collections — more than 4,000 plant species in all — make it easy to spend several hours here. The National Herbarium of Sri Lanka is housed on the grounds. The scale is generous, so choose a few highlights rather than trying to hurry through every path.

The gardens grew out of groundwork laid by Alexander Moon in 1821, six years after the British conquest of the Kandyan Kingdom, when the site was first planted with cinnamon and coffee. They were formally established in 1843, restocked with plant material from Kew Gardens in London. A line of superintendents shaped what followed: George Gardner, George Henry Kendrick Thwaites, Henry Trimen, and John Christopher Willis. Under Thwaites, after coffee cultivation collapsed to disease in the late 1870s, the gardens played a central role in setting up Ceylon's tea industry.

A Cannonball Tree planted by King George V and Queen Mary in 1901 marks a royal visit. During the Second World War the gardens served as the headquarters area for South East Asia Command under Lord Louis Mountbatten.