Botanical gardens primarily have been created to monitor, categorize, and document growth, and habits for scientific purposes. Botanists and horticulturalists tend and maintain the garden's vast library and herbarium of plants and plant material. Botanical gardens often also serve to entertain and educate the public, upon whom many depend for funding. Not all botanical gardens are open to the public: for example the Chelsea Physic Garden. According to the Botanic Gardens Conservation International, "Botanic gardens are institutions holding documented collections of living plants for the purposes of scientific research, conservation, display and education."Starting in the 18th century, European botanical gardens sent plant-collecting expeditions to various parts of the world and published their findings. Voyages of exploration routinely included botanists for this purpose. Subsequent scientific work studied how these exotic plants might be adapted to grow in the garden's locale, how to classify them, and how to propagate rare or endangered species. The Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, near London, has continuously published journals and more recently catalogues and databases since this time.
For more reading on botanical gardens: Great Botanic Gardens of the World by Sara Oldfield.
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