Creation of Edinburgh Botanic Garden, 1670
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In late 1667, the physicians Sir Andrew Balfour (1630-1694) and Sir Robert Sibbald (1641-1722) established a botanical garden in ground belonging to Holyroodhouse. It was designed partly to supply them with plants of use in materia medica and partly as a display collection.
By late 1667 he and Balfour had established a botanical garden in Edinburgh, in grounds belonging to Holyroodhouse. Both there and in the second site in the Trinity Hospital the garden became a major site for plants of use in materia medica. It was run by James Sutherland, later first professor of botany at Edinburgh University and author, with Sibbald's assistance, of the unpublished ‘Hortus medicus Edinburgensis’.