Sukhumi Botanical Garden is one of the oldest botanical gardens in the Caucasus

Caucasus

The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...

. It was founded in 1840 as Sukhum-Kale Military-Botanical Garden by the head of the Russian Black Sea fortification line N. N. Rayevsky with the purpose of the introduction of new plants in the region (particularly tea

Camellia sinensis

Camellia sinensis is the species of plant whose leaves and leaf buds are used to produce Chinese tea. It is of the genus Camellia , a genus of flowering plants in the family Theaceae. White tea, green tea, oolong, pu-erh tea and black tea are all harvested from this species, but are processed...

 and citrus fruits). It was ravaged by Turkish forces in 1853-55 and 1877-78 in the course of the Russo-Turkish wars. The garden was transferred to civil authorities in 1889 and the restoration of the plantings was begun in 1894.

Sukhumi botanical garden continued to develop during the Soviet rule and it was finally transformed into the research institute of botany of the Academy of Sciences

Russian Academy of Sciences

The Russian Academy of Sciences consists of the national academy of Russia and a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation as well as auxiliary scientific and social units like libraries, publishers and hospitals....

. More than 4,500 species were collected in the garden, including 1,200 tropical ones.

The garden suffered greatly during the Georgian-Abkhazian War.

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