In his 1887 publication Sketch of the Forestry of West Africa, Cornelius Alfred Moloney, British Governor of the Lagos Colony, provided “suggestions” for the development of a network of botanic gardens across the newly acquired West African territories. Over the next twenty years five botanical gardens were established across these very territories. Until the end of the nineteenth century systematic knowledge of West African botany remained largely elusive. Most British botanizing opportunities in the region up until then had mostly been a part of wider geographical, missionary, or military expeditions. The rise of the West African botanic gardens coincided with British formal control of the African coastal region. This period also saw the emergence of the Kew Botanic Gardens Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information which served as an ‘occasional publication’ for communicating botanical correspondence across the Empire. Focusing my talk on the second of the five established gardens in West Africa, I explore the role of ‘suggestions’ and ‘instructions’ in the shaping and early management of the Aburi Botanic Gardens, Gold Coast. I argue that, as an experimental laboratory, the early success of the Aburi Botanic Garden played a key role in plans to permanently expand botanic stations across West Africa. Colonial “successes” however, did not come without its failures.

Nathan Bossoh completed his PhD in History and Philosophy of Science at UCL in 2022 and his main research situates around the intersections of science, medicine and African collections. Currently he is a History Research Fellow at Southampton University. There he is undertaking a project examining the growth of plant medicine research in colonial and post-colonial Ghana with a focus on the circulation of botanical knowledge between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. Nathan is the co-curator of The Kola Nut Cannot Be Contained, an exhibition held at Wellcome Collection, London between July 2024 and February 2025 which explored the global histories, vibrant traditions, and contemporary innovations surrounding the Kola nut, a small bitter-tasting fruit found growing across Western African tropical forests. 

To register, please email instructingnaturalhistory@uu.se