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| Botanical Garden |
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History
One of the most beautiful attractions in Ooty is the Botanical Garden, situated on a hillock. Spread over 55 acres the Botanical Garden was laid out in the year 1847 by the Marquis of Tweedale. The garden is taken care of by the Horticulture Department of the Government of Tamil Nadu.
The Botanical Garden has well maintained beautiful lawns and trees collected from different parts of the world. It also has an assortment of several flowering plants and herbal plants. The garden is divided into various sections namely, New Garden, Lower Garden, and Italian Garden, amongst others. These gardens have about a thousand varieties, both exotic and indigenous, of plants, shrubs, ferns, trees, medicinal and bonsai plants. The Botanical Garden is home to several rare species of trees such as the cork tree, the monkey puzzle tree, and the paper bark tree. The cork tree is probably one of its kind in India. There is also an old fossillised tree trunk displayed over here, which is estimated to be 20 million years old. The Italian Garden, borders a lily pond with several varieties of aquatic plant species.
Another highlight of the Botanical Garden is the Toda hill, known as theToda mund, which gives the visitors an insight into the lives and culture of Todas (a tribe of the Nilgiris). Every year in the month of May, a flower show is conducted at the Ooty Botanical Garden that exhibits various flowers along with rare plant species, which is a major attraction of the place. The Botanical Garden of Ooty is worth a stopover when visiting Ooty.
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Best time to visit
Ideally, the month of May is thebest time to visit the Botanical Garden, as there are several exhibitions and other programmes organised, which draws many tourists to the venue.
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Trivia
The exclusive feature of the ‘monkey puzzle tree’ in the Botanical Garden is that monkeys cannot climb this tree!
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Timing
The timings for Botanical Garden are 8:00 am – 6:30 pm.
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Travel Tools
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