You will never run out of things to see in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. It is the country’s economic and financial center and also where you will find art galleries, clothing boutiques, star class restaurants, ritzy bars and more. All types of accommodation is readily available, including recently introduced city hotels, like the Colombo Courtyard. Colombo and the surrounding areas are also known for their abundance of greenery and natural beauty.
Take a short trip along the Colombo-Katunayake Expressway, around thirty kilometres out of Colombo, to find the large city of Gampaha, in the Gampaha District. It is one of the largest urban areas in the Western Province. The Henarathgoda Botanical Gardens is located nearby, off the main Colombo-Kandy Road. The Gardens are open to the public every day of the week but the trees look their lushest, with the richest green hues, during the monsoon months that sustain and nourish the soil year round.
Many years ago trees covered most of the island but forest areas had reduced to as little as one-fifth of the land area by the late twentieth century. The Gardens boast an extensive array of trees, many of which can only be found easily inside a botanical garden today. An enormous number of tropical trees can be found on the premises. The Para Rubber Tree that is scientifically known as Hevea Brasiliensis, grows in Brazil and can be found here.
Rubber seedlings, which first found their way to Sri Lanka from Brazil in 1876, were nurtured at the Henarathgoda Botanical Gardens. Today, rubber is one of the country’s main export crops and the entire industry is believed to have originated here. Fine specimens of valuable timber producing trees like: satinwood, ebony, ironwood and mahogany can also be viewed. Flowering acacias native to drier regions like Jaffna have been grown along with tropical and subtropical evergreens that represent the wet zone.
Damon Starky is a creative nomadic travel writer, who is well informed and experienced on a wide range of interests that would connect to the needs of any type of traveler.
