Often, when the plants were first classified, only one specimen was kept in the herbaria – the collections of preserved plants – and registered under the designation “only known from the type”. Several projects in the field of provenance research currently investigate, through genetic studies, from which collection stocks individual plants originate. A garden database has only existed for about 20 years – the database is silent about the time before that. There is no archive that provides information about the provenances of these plants. The founding of the garden in the GDR opened a new chapter in botanical migration: not only were many plants from the Potsdam collection transported to Moscow, but in return, plants from Soviet partner countries such as Cuba also migrated to Brandenburg. The bromeliads, epiphytes, orchids, cacti, and the food crops, coffee, cassava and yams, which today make up the main part of the plants, come from tropical countries of the global South. The informal exchange of seeds and cuttings among the botanical institutions in Germany is still common practice today. After 1950, these plants were supplemented by samples taken from the colonial collections of other German botanical gardens. Its stock, which today comprises 10,000 species, originates from the gardening stock of the palace park from the 18th and 19th centuries. The Botanical Garden was created in the 1950s as part of the Potsdam College of Education during the German Democratic Republic. The development of the gardenĪlthough the Potsdam Botanical Garden, as a university institution, looks back on a short history, its geographical location in the Park of the Sanssouci Palace means that it is interwoven with Park’s colonial history. We want to use the current debate on the restitution of African cultural artifacts as an opportunity to raise questions about the colonial heritage of botanical gardens as well. This text takes this conversation as a starting point and then asks questions about the origins, movements and possible return of the plants. He provided us with insights into his still unwritten work about the plants’ colonial histories. To begin to trace the hidden colonial layers, we met the curator of the Potsdam botanical garden, Dr. To imagine which countries the plants come from and at what time they came to Europe fundamentally changes the perspective of visitors to these institutions. Understanding botanical gardens as colonial sites seems particularly difficult: their plant inhabitants present themselves as too innocent, too splendid and too lively to be associated with colonial violence, white appropriation and hegemonic systems of knowledge production.
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