 Acres
and acres of undulating landscape filled with a
dazzling array of colours. Vast stretches of green
grass get dotted with carefully nurtured thickets,
tall trees and pristine water bodies. Tread softly
in the neatly manicured lawns and lose your path
into a world of some rare plants, aromatic plants
and also medicinal plants. This is neither a poet's
imagination nor a depiction of a painter's canvas.
This is the true picture of the newly opened Hyderabad
Botanical Gardens at Kothaguda near Hitec
City.
 Spread
over 120 acres of reserve forest area, the Hyderabad
Botanical Gardens serves as a sight seeing place
providing scientific knowledge about different plants
and trees to the visitors. True to its name the
Botanical garden is going to have all types of plants.
According to the in-charge of the Garden, Mr.
Hari Mohan Reddy, after completion of the project
the Garden would comprise of all major varieties
of Plant Kingdom and some rare species too. "In
the first 30 acre area you can find various sectors
like Aquatic, Bamboo, Palm; where particular type
of plants were there", adds Mr. Reddy.
 The
Aquatic sector, where one finds only water-loving
plant species like Nelumbium (Lotus), Nymphyaea
growing together. Enter the Bamboo sector and get
greeted with some rare bamboo species such as the
'Running Bamboo' and also the 'Giant Bamboo' species
brought specially from the far North East. "There
are bout 1250 varieties of Bamboo plants exists
in the world. Of them 900 species available in Asia
and 125 species in India", explains Mr.
Reddy and asks do you know how many varieties are
there in Botanical Garden? 18 replies, Mr. Reddy
with pride. Explore the Rockpool sector, Palm
sector and the Ornamental sector and
meanwhile stop to appreciate the age-old charm of
Cycas, which have come to be known as Living
Fossil.
 We
know that most of the ornamental plants are crotons,
but how many of us know that most of the crotons
belong to Euphorbaceae family in the Plant Kingdom.
If you visit the Botanical Garden, your knowledge
about different plants certainly increases. After
finishing a stroll in the Garden you will call the
Neem plant as Azadiracta indica and
Custard Apple as Annona squamosa.
Almost all the plants in all sectors provided with
nameplates having the common names along with scientific
names.
 The
atmosphere at the Garden would be serene and silent
with only tweets of the birds, if it would have
built away from the highway. If the vehicular traffic
is less on the road then you can enjoy the beauty
of nature to full extent.
Developed jointly by AP Tourism Department
and AP Forest Department under eco-tourism
project, the Hyderabad Botanical Garden would soon
be expanded to encompass another 90 acres with sectors
such as Fernarium, Palaeo Botanical Garden, Fruit
Garden and Sacred Plant Garden.
Timings: 9am to 6pm
Entry Fee: Adults Rs 10, Children Rs.5
How to reach: Ten minute drive from Hitec
City towards Hyderabad Central University.
City Bus Numbers: 47K, 10H from Secunderabad
station (stage Kothaguda) or you can catch other
buses to Kothaguda from Hitec City too. |
5:59:50 PM 
