Lankester Botanical Garden

The Lankester Botanical Gardens are a set of gardens out of doors of Cartago, Costa Rica. The garden is open to the public, however, is operated by way of the University of Costa Rica as research middle and is a primary middle for orchid studies in each Central America and the Caribbean.

In 1910, Charles H. Lankester moved from England to Costa Rica and around the same time started out accumulating orchids. Collecting samples, he despatched them to orchidologists at Kew Gardens for identification. In 1924, he bought a coffee farm, called Las Concavas from Francisco Quesada close to Cartago, Costa Rica. On the farm was a large lagoon which attracted migratory birds. Near the lagoon, Lankester created an area which he has known as El Silvestre, which became reserved for orchids and different tropical vegetation. In 1955, he bought the rest of the farm, preserving only El Silvestre. When Lankester died in 1969, his daughter Dorothy inherited the assets.