M I S S O U R I B O T A N I C A L G A R D E N

Enter the world of Henry Shaw

©2005 Missouri Botanical GardenPhotography by Matt Bender, Jack Jennings, Josh Monken.Map by Tom Willcockson, www.mapcraft.com.

Printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper.Paper manufactured using 100% wind power. 11/05

M I S S O U R I B O T A N I C A L G A R D E N4344 Shaw Boulevard • Saint Louis, Missouri 63110

(314) 577-9400 • www.mobot.org

historyBotany—the study of plants—was among the most popular ofthe 19th century sciences, in an era when science developeda fervent popular following. Cheap, healthy, and pious, botanyrequired only a love of nature and a few inexpensive tools forplant collection. Men, women, and children would roam thecountryside, contemplating Nature’s handiwork, and gatheringplant specimens. This interest in plant life flowed naturally intoa groundswell of interest in gardening and public gardens.

It was in the early Victorian period that public botanicalgardens were first conceived (the first director of the RoyalBotanic Gardens—Kew, Sir William Jackson Hooker, wasappointed in 1841), and in the high Victorian era twenty yearslater that Henry Shaw brought the phenomenon to America.Over 145 years later, Shaw’s Victorian legacy lives on in theMissouri Botanical Garden’s world-renowned programs forgardening, education, and research.

D O N O R O P P O R T U N I T I E S

You can make a difference in the Garden. Special namingopportunities exist for honoring or memorializing your loved ones. For information, contact the Development Office at (314) 577-5120.

V I C T O R I A N A R E A

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look at the patterns in the Victorian Area. How manydifferent shapes can you find? Henry Shaw had a parterre(par-TARE), which is French for “on the ground.” This typeof garden is usually in the shape of a square or rectangle.

listen for the tower bells. They ring every hour. Mr. Shawrang a bell each morning to start the workday. Where elsedo they ring a bell at the start of the day?

smell Find the funny-smelling bushes near Mr. Shaw’sresting place. What are they called? Some people say theysmell like a wet dog. What do you think? Boxwood are hardto grow in St. Louis.

touch Find a leaf that looks like a mitten and see if it fitsyour hand! (Hint: these trees grew in front of Mr. Shaw’shouse.) What is the name of this tree and how many otherleaf shapes can you see?

taste Visit the Herb Garden and rub some lavenderbetween your fingers. Does it smell good enough to eat?Lavender is a member of the mint family. Victorians usedlavender in cookies and cakes.

how many can you find?__________ statues

__________ windows in Tower Grove House

__________ different herbs

__________ sundials (clocks that tell time with sunlight)

__________ urns (the big, fancy planters)

making sense of the victorian garden

1 . T O W E R G R O V E H O U S E ( 1 8 4 9 ) The elegant countryhome of Garden founder Henry Shaw was designed byarchitect George I. Barnett in the fashionable Italianate“Lake Como” style. Though it is difficult to imagine now, theland here was then covered in prairie; the only trees a smallstand of sassafras. This grove and the tower on the buildinggave rise to the home’s name.

Upon Shaw’s death in 1889, the house was inhabited by theGarden’s first director William Trelease, who replaced theeastern wing with the larger, more symmetrical wing theretoday. The home was renovated in 1953 to become anhistoric house museum, and furniture and materials oncebelonging to Shaw were restored.

2 . H E R B G A R D E N The St. Louis Herb Society Herb Gardenis enclosed in an ornamental iron fence behind Tower GroveHouse. Inspired and tended by the St. Louis Herb Society,this quaint courtyard, installed in 1963 and renovated in 2003,includes beds of culinary and medicinal herbs . Millstonesare traditional features of herb gardens, as are sundials, andboth are found here. The Fountain Angel around the corneron the west side of the house originally stood at the SkinkerBoulevard entrance to the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis.

3 . K R E S K O F A M I LY V I C T O R I A N G A R D E N

Reminiscent of an earlier garden built by Shaw on thepresent site of the lily pools, this brick-lined garden is anoutstanding example of the height of fashion in England in the

1800s, when elaborate and colorful combinations of flowers,foliage, and succulents were combined in formal patterns tocreate “plant tapestries.” Now, as then, the centerpiece of thisgarden is a white marble statue of Juno by Italian sculptorCarlo Nicoli, acquired by Shaw in 1886.

4 . K A E S E R M A Z E A re-creation of a maze constructed byShaw in the 1800s, these hedges stand five-and-a-half feetabove ground, but are sunken two-and-a-half feet, sooutsiders may observe maze-goers. Make it through thelabyrinth of yew hedges ringed with arborvitae and discover a delightful vine-clad gazebo.

5 . P I P E R O B S E R VAT O R Y A replica of one built by HenryShaw in Tower Grove Park, the observatory is a quintessentialfeature of a Victorian garden, providing lovely views of theformal bed arrangements. Visitors may also help friends findtheir way in the maze.

6. TOWNHOUSE (1851) /ADMINISTRATION BUILDING (1909)

This three-story brick home stood in downtown St. Louis on the southwest corner of Seventh and Locust streets until 1891,when, according to Shaw’s will, it was dismantled brick bybrick and reassembled on Garden grounds. Today, this originaltownhouse constitutes the northern end of the ShoenbergAdministration Building, which holds administrative offices and is not open to the public. The south wing of the buildingwas added in 1909.

7 . M A U S O L E U M ( 1 8 8 6 ) Beneath the copper-roofed, octagonal rose-granite mausoleum lies the final resting place ofGarden founder Henry Shaw (1800–1889). In classic Victorianfashion, Shaw planned his monument quite carefully, hiringGeorge I. Barnett to design the structure, and sitting for the whitemarble sculpture which tops his tomb in the years before hisdeath. Sheltered by towering oaks, the grounds of Baltic ivy andliriope are punctuated by snowdrops and scilla in early spring.

8 . M U S E U M B U I L D I N G ( 1 8 5 9 ) Another Barnett design, the structure shares a floor plan with the Museum No. 2 at the Royal Botanic Gardens—Kew, and originally housed Henry Shaw’s library, herbarium, and natural historyspecimens. The Museum Building was closed in 1997 and awaits restoration.

9 . V I C T O R Y O F S C I E N C E O V E R I G N O R A N C E

Built in the 1860s of native Missouri limestone, this originalmausoleum was rejected by Shaw in favor of the current, moredurable granite model. Shaw commissioned a copy of Cosani's Victory of Science over Ignorance in 1886 from the same artist who created Juno, Carlo Nicoli.

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Welcome to the Victorian Area of the Missouri Botanical

Garden. Founded in 1859, the Garden is the oldest

continuously operated botanical garden in the nation,

a National Historic Landmark, and a showplace of

Victorian architecture and garden design.

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VICTORIAN GARDEN

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