The Botanic Gardens is Our Green Heritage and Green Future

By Thomas Uhl

March 2024 FEATURE
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This special edition of Malaysia’s stamp from 2002 features the lush pink flowers of the cannonball tree (Couroupita guianensis)—perhaps the most distinctive plant in the Penang Botanic Gardens. Planted when it was first opened in 1886, the cannonball trees werebrought over to Penang by the British colonial government to replace the rain trees (Samanea saman) that were planted at the entrance of the park on 20 June 1887, to celebrate the 50 th anniversary of Queen Victoria’s ascension to the throne.
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“THE WATERFALL GARDEN occupies the lower slopes of a valley leading into the hills, whose forest covered slopes enclose it on all sides. At the head is the waterfall and reservoir, below which the stream and its tributaries flow though the garden,” described R. E. Holttum, then director of the Botanic Gardens, in 1934. [1] The place is named after the impressive waterfall in its grounds, which tumbles down 30 to 40 feet.Thomas Uhl, a member of the Friends of...

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References
  • [1] The Waterfall Garden Penang, R. E. Holttum, Singapore, 1934
Thomas Uhl

has been living for a year in Penang. He organised a stamp exhibition titled “The Botanical Gardens of Penang, Malaysia and Halle, Germany”. Thomas is from Halle, Germany, where he writes for a neighbourhood newspaper and in philatelic journals.

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