The garden’s purpose

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John Davidson was a systematist, whose main concern was correctly naming plants by the taxonomic standards of his day. Many years later, in a talk to the Vancouver Institute (a campus event at which Vancouverites could take part in intellectual activities), he told of the two distinct views of botanical gardens. Quoting from a speech of Dr. Regel from Kaunas, Lithuania, Davidson said:

The botanical garden of today should be preeminently a garden for systematic, taxonomic, and botanical research purposes... The correct naming of the specimens is of first importance, therefore a systematist is a necessity... There are other so-called botanic gardens which are nothing more or less than public parks for landscape planting and decorative flower beds.

Davidson compared this view with the outlook taken at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, which viewed a botanical garden as an institution based on plant life and, therefore, included horticulture and horticultural instruction in their operations.

John Davidson supported the former view when creating the first UBC Botanical Garden:

Botanical and horticultural to be kept distince [sic], and not overlap. The botanical nursery to grow duplicates of native flora, and plants of other families for teaching material (exotic section). Botanical Gardens became an outdoor Museum of living specimens, of value to visitors from many parts of the world.

Davidson’s botanical garden on West Mall was one in which species were physically arranged by name to allow students to become familiar with different plant families and to understand the relationships among them.