The Botanical Garden Basel and its Colonial Heritage

Spalengraben 8 4051 Basel

Text by Pina Haas

Botanical Gardens and questions of de-colonizing ecology

Figure 1 The Botanical Garden. Photo S. Bryner, 11.02.2022.

Reading the history of the botanical garden of Basel through a framework of de-colonial ecology can serve to understand the deep entanglement of botany and botanical gardens with the history and present of colonialism. The driving factor of this entangled relationship is a fascination with the so-called ‘tropical’ and ‘exotic’. While contributing to education about and appreciation for other species, biodiversity and nature conservation efforts, botanical gardens worldwide have to be read in their historical context, especially for their role in the colonial processes of Western appropriation and ‘othering’ of the colonized peoples and lands and in the production of hegemonic knowledge systems.

Figure 2 The new tropical building. Photo taken by Saskia Bryner on February 11th 2022

Founded in 1589 by Caspar Bauhin - a botanist and anatomist at the University of Basel - the botanical garden of Basel is among the oldest worldwide. Up until the end of the 19^th century, the botanical garden of Basel was a small university initiative located at the Rheinsprung in Basel (Binz 1983). Although the keeping of gardens in academic and scientific contexts existed for centuries before, Johnson points out that “it is not until Europe expands its exploration overseas and develops an empire that modern botanical gardens are born and the idea of bringing together the flora of the earth in a single space is inaugurated” (Johnson 2011, 103). This historical development is also visible in the Botanical Garden in Basel. In 1895 the garden was relocated to the current location at Spalengraben, a move which enabled the enlargement of the garden’s collections and the construction of new greenhouses (Binz 1938). During this time, the garden was increasingly concerned with collecting and studying ‘exotic’ and ‘tropical’ plants and became an increasingly popular attraction for the public in Basel and an expression of the fascination with the ‘other’ which was ‘discovered’ in the colonization of the ‘New World’ (Schär 2015, 96-97).

Figure 3 Plants from abroad. Photo S. Bryner, 11.02.2022.

Even though Switzerland did not have colonies as a nation itself, the country and especially cities like Basel were very much involved in the process of colonization and commercially and ideologically influenced by it. Swiss culture was of course also influenced greatly by the European worldview that formed in the wake of the enlightenment period and the spread of the idea of Western superiority integral to colonialism (Schär 2015, chapter 1). In terms of botany, Mastnak T., et al. (2014) write that colonialism can be read as a “huge planting and displanting enterprise” (p. 364) which entailed the literal and metaphoric “planting in” (p. 366) of people, plants and animals at the expense of the “uprooting of indigenous plants as well as indigenous people” (p. 365). The colonial plantation can be regarded as the epitome of this “botanic colonization” (p 364). This pervasive domination of people, fauna and flora is based on an assumption of being in a rightful position to shape and rule over entire ecosystems which can be argued to find its roots in Western modernity and persist up until today (Pattberg 2007). Botanical gardens are institutions in which the colonial idea of such “government of nature” (Mastnak et al. 2014, 367) is manifested. Plants are collected overseas and in botanical gardens they are cultivated, protected, managed, and turned into a commodity but in the colonies, these plants have been uprooted and wiped out to make space for plantations and European landscaping (Mastnak, Elyachar, and Boellstorff 2014; Heyden and Zeller 2007).

Figure 4 The Victoria House from the front with the University Library building behind. Photo P. Haas, 15.07.2021.

The heart and centerpiece of the botanical garden in Basel is certainly the Victoria House. The Victoria House (see figure 1) is specifically constructed for the cultivation and showcasing of the large lotuses mostly referred to by the Latin name Victoria Regia (Schmid 1996). Considering the story of the lotus from a de-colonial perspective highlights certain problems revolving around the Victoria House. First, the plant (which the house was named after) was ‘discovered’ by Robert Schomburgk in an Amazon region in what is today Guyana right after the country had become the first and only British Colony in South America (‘Discovering the Victoria Regia Water Lily', Pt. I 2013). The British botanist John Lindley then ‘identified’ the plant and named it Victoria Regia after Victoria, the queen of England at the time (Yeomans 2014). Today Queen Victoria is associated with the era of industrialization and the colonial expansion of the British Empire during the 19^th century. She is the first queen to carry the additional title “Empress of India” (‘Victoria (r. 1837-1901)’ n.d.). Since then, the plant has become what Holway calls “the flower of Empire” and can be considered an epitome of tropical fascination (Holway 2013). It is important to remember that European scientists like Schomburgk - although being promoted as such - “[...] did not discover nature in the strict sense of the term, but only a reality already pre-interpreted and pre-cultivated." What was reported about these foreign places, "was therefore in essential parts a kind of transformation of the local prevailing worldview into a European worldview” (Schär 2015, 14). Through naming plants, animals and even landscapes after Europeans, natural scientists are glorifying personalities like Queen Victoria and position themselves as discoverers of hitherto supposedly unknown species.

Figure 5 Inside the Victoria House in the botanical garden Basel. Photo P. Haas, 15.07.2021.

What is forgotten or obscured in this process of symbolic appropriation is the multi-layered cultural and environmental history of these captivated and showcased species. Additionally to the Latin name Victoria, the lotus has been given multiple names with indigenous, Spanish and folklore backgrounds (González 2007, 12). Irupé for example is the name it is referred to by the Guarani, an indigenous people living mainly in what is today called Paraguay. For them, the plant has great cultural, cosmetic, and medicinal value and there is at least one important mythical legend surrounding the lotus (González 2007; Martín 2014, 151-152).

For an institution as central and proudly presented by the city and university as the botanical garden of Basel, it would be important to critically engage with the historical contexts of the plants exhibited and to recognize their various cultural and religious meanings and local values for the indigenous communities living in the areas where these plants were ‘discovered’. Situating the plant in its complex and multi-layered background of meaning and history of appropriation should be done to serve the de-naturalization of the European naming and framing of plants and thus highlight the historic complicity of the natural sciences in the dissemination of colonialist thinking and acting. In the last few years, demands for the restitution of cultural artefacts and art pieces looted in the process of colonization have become louder (see e.g. Hunt 2019). Understanding botanical gardens like museal institutions as suggested by Gramlich und Kray (Gramlich and Kray n.d.) for example, demands a discussion about the questions of how plants and species should be represented, how the institutions colonial heritage can be adequately addressed and finally if and how plants and animal species should and could be returned to their home regions.

References

Binz, A. (1983). Aus Basels botanischem Garten - Basler Jahrbuch 1938. Basel : Christoph Merian Stiftung. Aus Basels botanischem Garten - Basler Jahrbuch 1938 (baslerstadtbuch.ch)

González, J. E. (2007). Hojas de sol en la victoria regia: La razón de ser de un título. Hojas de sol en la victoria regia: Emergencias de un pensamiento ambiental alternativo en América latina. Universidad Nacional - IDEA Grupo de Pensamiento Ambiental. https://repositorio.unal.edu.co/bitstream/handle/unal/12049/anapatricianoguera.2007_Parte1.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y.

Gramlich, N., Kray, L. (n.d) Koloniale Geschichten des botanischen Gartens in Potsdam (Teil 1)’. Postcolonial Potsdam (blog). http://postcolonialpotsdam.org/2020/03/05/botanischer-garten-1/.

Heyden, U. van der., Zeller, J. ( 2007). Kolonialismus Hierzulande: Eine Spurensuche in Deutschland. Erfurt: Sutton.

Holway, T.M. (2013). The Flower of Empire: An Amazonian Water Lily, the Quest to Make It Bloom, and the World It Created. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.

Hunt, T. (2019). Should Museums Return Their Colonial Artefacts? The Guardian: The Observer https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/jun/29/should-museums-return-their-colonial-artefacts

Johnson, N, C. (2011). Botanical Gardens and Zoos. The SAGE Handbook of Geographical Knowledge, edited by John A. Agnew and David N. Livingstone, 99–107. Los Angeles: SAGE.

Martín, P. (2014). Pachamama Tales: Folklore from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay. World Folklore Series. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Mastnak, T. , Elyachar, J., Boellstorff, T. ( 2014). Botanical Decolonization: Rethinking Native Plants. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 32 (2), 363–80. https://doi.org/10.1068/d13006p.

Oxford Academic (2013). Discovering the Victoria Regia Water Lily, Pt. I. Youtube Video. Oxford Academic (Oxford University Press). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koyzSQyn3u4.

Pattberg, P. (2007). Conquest, Domination and Control: Europe’s Mastery of Nature in Historic Perspective. Journal of Political Ecology 14 (1). https://doi.org/10.2458/v14i1.21681.

Royal UK (n.d). Victoria (r. 1837-1901). Royal UK (blog). https://www.royal.uk/queen-victoria.

Schär, B. (2015). Tropenliebe: Schweizer Naturforscher und niederländischer Imperialismus in Südostasien um 1900. Campus Verlag.

Schmid, M. (1996). Ein königliches Haus für eine Seerose Das Victoria-Haus als Bauform des 19. Jahrhunderts. Basler Stadtbuch 1996. Basel : Christoph Merian Stiftung. Ein königliches Haus für eine Seerose - Basler Stadtbuch 1996

Universität Basel. (n.d). Geschichte | Botanischer Garten. https://botgarten.unibas.ch/de/garten/geschichte/.

Yeomans, J. (2014). Victoria Amazonica - Inspiring a Nation | Kew. Institution Roya. https://www.kew.org/read-and-watch/victoria-amazonica-inspiring-a-nation.