Hakgala Botanic Gardens
Over 10,000 plant species are found at what is one of Sri Lanka’s best-known botanical gardens, originally created to cultivate cinchona, the bark of which yields quinine, once the only treatment for malaria.
Today, the garden is famous for its orchids and roses, as well as temperate plants such as conifers and cedars from Australia, Bermuda and Japan, and cypresses from the Himalayas, China, Persia, Mexico and California.
Visitors are encouraged to explore the site, which adjoins the Hakgala Strict Nature Reserve and is the second-largest of five botanical gardens in Sri Lanka, the others being Peradeniya, Henarathgoda, Mirijjawila and Seetawaka.