Botanical Garden of Kisantu

Tammy, Robert, Alphonse, Sam in the Kisantu Botanical Garden




On Sunday, Jan 13, Sam and I went with our gardener to the Botanical Garden of Kisantu. We also took Tammy, Sam's secretary, for the ride. We wanted to find citrus trees (lemon, lime, tangerine) for the DCR garden (Deputy Chief's Residence), dwarf coconuts, finger bananas and other uncommon plants. Most of these would not give fruit in our "lifetime" but one has to think of future generations of DCM's! So we also took our gardener, Alphonse. Robert is the driver.

Kisantu is on the road to Matadi, the Atlantic port city of DRCongo. The Congo River is 2720 miles long, navigable in sections separated by three series of rapids and falls: the "Gates of Hell", a 75-mile-long canyon of impassable rapids tumbling from the East African Rift (the river is called the Lualaba here); Stanley Falls, now Boyoma Falls, 60 miles long just beyond Kisangani, and finally, Livingstone (or Tembo or N'tombo) Falls, separating Matadi at the bottom and Kinshasa at the top. So the road we were on is Kinshasa's lifeline to the world, since the railroad barely functions now. It's been renovated and is now one of the best roads in the country. Certainly the best near Kinshasa. The road heads almost straight south, peeling away from the Congo river just outside the city. We passed the "Welcome to Bas-Congo" province line (my first time out of the Kinshasa province since we got here in August!), the towns of Kasangulu and Madimba, and arrived at Kisantu in just two hours, 120 km.






I was told the gardens had been destroyed during the wars (used as a military camp), so what we found was a pleasant surprise. A small well-kept museum exhibiting different woods of the world, the Botanical and Horticultural Institute, a knowledgeable and pleasant guide, and acres of strange, beautiful and exotic plants and trees, including the mysterious famous "Tacca" - now that I know how to spell it I've found it on the web. And it's not an orchid, either... And you can buy them at Amazon.com! hmf. Look for "Bat Plant."
This is the Tacca plant at the garden, growing a flower bulb.





The garden was founded over a hundred years ago by a Jesuit Brother, Justin Gillet. He was passionnate about plants and gardens. Like Mendel he experimented with cross-breeding. He developed varieties of tomatoes, lettuce, and other edible plants that were hardy here. He isolated a type of grass that is now used for lawns throughout this region.














This is called Nile Lettuce. It cleans the water in which it lives, said our guide. Indeed, I found an article in the Journal of Environmental Management that concludes that "Pistia Stratiotes" can be used for treating urban and agricultural sewage.







Another nearly black plant.







On the way home, we took a detour to see the Kisantu Catholic Cathedral. We were stunned, because this is the most beautiful building we've seen in DRCongo, by far. Apparently the first missionaries here preferred the climate, above the malaria-infested estuary.









(See how wide an angle my little camera can take?)

The cathedral is massive, intricately and well designed, well-proportioned, truly inspiring.


It was Sunday afternoon, but we were lucky: we were allowed inside, and it was just as stunning. Fantastic texture and color all done with bricks. The bricks, we were told, came from a "briquetterie", or brick factory, in the Botanical Gardens.

After this, we also saw the "Grand Seminaire" of Kisantu which is also built of bricks, quite beautiful and well-designed. Seminarians from six dioceses come to study here. They spend at least seven years here on their long road to priesthood. They're partly self-sustaining, with a garden, well, and generator that they turn on four hours every evening for study time.

Then it was time to go home with the usual roadside scenery of rolling hills and busy towns, and overloaded trucks...