한국국제교류재단

CULTURE NEWS

Sejong National Arboretum
A repository of ASEAN plants

The Sejong National Arboretum is located a 140 kilometer drive from Seoul in Sejong Special Self-Governing City. The arboretum, which is Korea’s first urban arboretum, boasts a massive 650,000 square meter lot that houses many greenhouses, of which the most eye-catching is the Four Seasons Exhibition Greenhouse. From the sky, the greenhouse looks like a flower in full bloom. It was designed to visualize the three petals of an iris, a monocotyledon, and is comprised of three parts: the Mediterranean Exhibition Greenhouse, the Tropical Exhibition Greenhouse, and the Special Exhibition Greenhouse. The Mediterranean greenhouse houses 228 species, including Queensland bottle trees, olive trees, date palms, and bougainvillias, and a 32-meter observatory. The tropical greenhouse has a deck trail that is lined with 437 tree species, including tree ferns, Alstonias, and Bodhi trees.
One interesting feature of the tropical greenhouse is the presence of plant life that live in climates that are very different from that of Korea. Temperature is maintained at 30 degrees Celsius, and humidity at 70%, giving visitors a taste of ASEAN’s hot and humid forests. The massive Alstonia scholaris, which is today often regarded as a symbol of the arboretum, was imported from Indonesia; it can grow up to 32 meters tall and is usually used to make musical instruments and pencils. Visitors can also see the Malaysian black bat flower, which grows in shaded areas in hot and humid tropical regions and whose petals resemble a bat’s wings. The arboretum, which skillfully creates a distinctive ASEAN atmosphere through plants alone, may be the best way to experience ASEAN’s nature in Korea—especially with international travel still highly restricted due to COVID-19. The Sejong National Arboretum is operated weekly from Tuesday through Sunday. Visitors are advised to remember that final admission is at 17:00 in the summer and 16:00 in the winter.