Corporate Body
Museum of Economic Botany (1881 - )
Adelaide Botanic Gardens
- From
- 1881
Adelaide, South Australia, Australia - Functions
- Collection Management, Economic botany and Museum
- Alternative Names
- Santos Museum of Economic Botany (Subsequent name, 2009 - )
- Website
- https://www.botanicgardens.sa.gov.au/visit/adelaide-botanic-garden/museum-economic-botany
Summary
The Museum of Economic Botany was founded in 1881 by Richard Schomburgk, Director of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens. He took as his model the museum at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The Adeliade Museum is housed in a heritage-listed building within the Gardens. It is the sole remaining such museum of its kind in Australia. The original intention was to display and encourage the study of plants of practical use to humankind. Plant materials on display included fibre plants, dyes, food and beverage plants, essential oils, gums and resins, timbers and tapa cloth. There were also papier mâche models of fruit and fungi, and aboriginal plant products. The Museum declined from the 1890s until revived in the 1970s under the directorship of Noel Lothian. It currently houses over 3,000 objects. The now-restored building regularly hosts exhibitions relating to the practical, medicinal and economic use of plant materials. In 2009 it was renamed the Santos Museum of Economic Botany.
Related entries
Superior
Published resources
Books
- Aitken, Richard, Seeds of Change: an Illustrated History of Adelaide Botanic Garden (Richmond: Board of the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium/Bloomings Books, 2006). Details
- Emmett, Peter, Harvest: an exhibition about plants and place from South Australian collections, Santos Museum of Economic Botany, Adelaide Garden, 30 May - 23 August 2009 (Adelaide: Botanic Garden of Adelaide, 2009), 45 pp. Details
- Emmett, Peter and Kanellos, Tony, eds, Santos MEB Museum of Economic Botany: the Museum of Economic Botany at the Adelaide Botanic Garden, a Souvenir (Adelaide: Botanic Gardens of Adelaide, 2010), 186 pp. Details
- Kanellos, Tony, Imitation of life: a visual catalogue of the 19th century fruit models in the Santos Museum of Economic Botany in the Adelaide Botanic Garden, a collection of papier maché models made by Heinrich Arnoldi & Co. Gotha (Adelaide: Board of the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium, 2013), 384 pp. Details
Resource Sections
- Parsons, Alexander, 'Museum of Economic Botany', SA History Hub, History Trust of South Australia, Adelaide, 2017. https://sahistoryhub.history.sa.gov.au/places/museum-of-economic-botany. Details
Helen Cohn
Created: 18 July 2024