Mission
The New York Botanical Garden is an advocate for the plant kingdom. The Garden pursues its mission through its role as a museum of living plant collections arranged in gardens and landscapes across its National Historic Landmark site; through its comprehensive education programs in horticulture and plant science; and through the wide-ranging research programs of The International Plant Science Center.

History
The New York Botanical Garden was founded in 1891, though its history really begins with the development of the site by the Lorillards, a family of tobacco merchants, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Though the Lorillard interest in this land was fundamentally economic, they were remarkable stewards of the land, and the unique brand of stewardship practiced in the gardens today owes a direct debt to their heritage. In 1891 an eminent Columbia University botanist named Nathaniel Lord Britton and his wife, Elizabeth, also a botanist, were so inspired by their visit to England's Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew that they determined New York should possess a great botanical garden. A magnificent site was selected in the northern section of the Bronx, part of which had belonged to the vast estate of Pierre Lorillard. The land was set aside by the State Legislature for the creation of "a public botanic garden of the highest class" for the City of New York. Prominent civic leaders and financiers, including Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and J. Pierpont Morgan, agreed to match the City's commitment to finance the buildings and improvements, initiating a public-private partnership that continues today. In 1896 The New York Botanical Garden appointed Nathaniel Lord Britton its first director.

Now in its second century, the Garden is growing more ambitiously than ever, in order to build knowledge and apply new technologies to better address today's and tomorrow's challenges.