BENGALURU: At a time when the city’s green cover is fast disappearing, the nearly 200-acre Cubbon Park at the heart of the city is a landmark lung space.
With many motorable roads, and well laid out walking paths, it is frequented by early morning walkers and naturalists alike.
Major General Richard Sankey was responsible for its landscaping in 1870. The park was initially called Meade’s Park, after Colonel Reerch Meade was the commissioner in charge of Mysore state from 1870 to 1875). It was later named after Sir Mark Cubbon, Commissioner of Mysore state from 1834 to 1861. On July 26, 1948, the park was rechristened Sri Chamarajendra Park, but the name did not stick.
The park has about 86 genera, 411 different species and a total of 7,726 plants – local and exotic trees, shrubs, and climbers. It is the only park in the state to have different varieties of flowering Plumerias.
Indigenous species include artocarpus, cassia fistula, ficus, polyalthias, while the exotic species like araucaria, bamboo, castanospermum australe, grevillea robusta, millettia, peltophorum, schinus molle, swietenia mahagoni and tabebuia also thrive here. Among the ornamental and flowering exotic trees lining the roads in the park are the silver oak (Grevillea robusta) — introduced to the city from Australia — and the delonix or the gulmohar.
Cubbon Park is maintained by the Department of Horticulture.