Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2022L00636:body:0:p77
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2022L00636
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 218870–221854

for its value as a research and teaching site based on the extensive herbarium collection linked to the living plant collection; this is rare on such a scale in Australia.

Attributes
The combination of herbarium and living plant collections.

Criterion E: Aesthetic characteristics
The place has significant heritage value because of the place's importance in exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics valued by a community or cultural group.
The ANBG is important for aesthetic characteristics valued by the community as it exhibits an attractive park landscape with a well-balanced integration of spaces and form; interest from the vegetation details of the variety of native species; contrasts of small and large plants, waterform, rockform and colour; vistas of major Canberra features including Parliament House and many enframed attractive views across the lake.

Attributes
All the features noted above.

Criterion F: Technical achievement
The place has significant heritage value because of the place's importance in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period.
The ANBG is important for demonstrating a high degree of technical achievement by establishing a living collection linked to the herbarium collection. It also demonstrates design excellence in construction of certain garden features, in particular the Rainforest Gully, which represents a geographic transect up the east coast of Australia, and the rockery area with its carefully contrived combination of rocks, pools and running water. The ANBG is innovative in being the first public garden composed essentially of Australian native plants with some related species.

Attributes
The living collection linked to the herbarium collection, the Rainforest Gully, the rockery area, plus the fact that the ANBG was the first major public garden composed essentially of Australian native plants.

History
The creation of a Botanic Gardens in Canberra was first recommended in 1933 by the Advisory Council for the then Federal Capital Territory. Also in 1933 Dr Bertram Dickson, Chief of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Organisation (CSIRO) Division of Plant Industry was asked to examine the feasibility of the proposal. In his report in 1935, Dickson supported the proposal and recommended a site on the lower slopes of Black Mountain. The project was deferred firstly because of the Depression and later because of World War II. However, shortly after the war Lindsay Pryor, Superintendent of Parks and Gardens in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), began development of the Botanic Gardens.
The site of the Gardens was previously leased for grazing. Pryor took the opportunity of an International Forestry Conference in 1949 to arrange for the Prime Minister, Ben Chifley, and the Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, Sir Edward Salisbury, to plant trees to formally start the Gardens. Planning and planting continued throughout the 1950s.