Description

Henarathgoda Botanical Garden is located near Gampaha, about 450 m away from Gampaha railway station, on Gampaha-Minuwangoda main road. It was founded in 1876 by the British to conduct operations on exotic industrial plants such as Rubber and explore plant wealth and expansion of the economy in the territory. The garden consists of a broad type of plants, and many of them are from each corner of the tropical climatic zones and includes the land of 43 acres.
The prime imported rubber tree to Sri Lanka was first settled in this garden. It held the first seedlings of Brazilian rubber tree ever colonised in Asia after the seeds burrowed out from the Pará, Santarém, Brazil by British explorer Sir Henry Alexander Wickham did introduce to Sri Lanka from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, The British scientists examined their tests on Sri Lanka due to the collapse of Rubber trials in India. They found that Ceylon offers the same environmental condition as that of the Amazon. These trees bloomed in 1880, and from the following year, Rubber seeds were distributed throughout the country and some other British colonies in South and Southeast Asia.