The Taipei Botanical Garden was originally established during
Japanese rule in 1896 as a
nursery. It was then officially renamed the
Taihoku Botanical Garden in 1921. By 1930, there were 1,129 species in the Garden, serving largely academic research and natural sciences. Maintenance of the Garden halted during
World War II. After the war, the garden was rearranged and new plants were introduced. It is currently maintained by the
Taiwan Forestry Research Institute (TFRI) and has over 2,000 species of plants. In October 2022, TFRI official Tung Gene-sheng signed
memorandums of understanding with the Mlyňany Arboretum in
Slovakia and Prague Botanical Garden (Botanická zahrada Praha) in the
Czech Republic. As part of the partnerships, the Taipei Botanical Garden made plans to feature various
Central European plant species in its gardens and work with the Prague Botanical Garden to feature Taiwanese ferns in Prague as soon as 2024. The Taipei Botanical Garden is a member of
Botanic Garden Conservation International.
The Project for Future Green The TFRI launched an initiative called "National Botanical Gardens – the Project for Future Green" (PFS; 國家植物園方舟計畫) in 2019. The initiative adheres to the objectives set out in the
Global Strategy for Plant Conservation. As of 2022, the Botanical Garden had made significant progress in reaching the goal of "At least 75 per cent of
threatened plant species in
ex situ collections," improving its metric from 22% in 2016 to 65% in 2022. As part of the PFS initiative, the
TFRI received a budget of NT$400 million (approximately US$13 million) over 4 years and planned to establish new Greenhouses at the Taipei Botanical Garden, originally scheduled to open in 2021. ==Grounds==