Travel Picks: Top 10 botanical gardens

SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) - For travelers with little interest in beaches, golf or spas but a passion for horticulture, Travel + Leisure magazine has come up with a list of the world's top 10 botanical gardens.

Elizabeth Scholtz, director emeritus of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, said there's been a huge increase in garden travel.

"Gardens are such a wonderful refuge, and more and more, people are looking for a haven from the stress of modern life," said Scholtz.

Following is Travel + Leisure top 10 gardens list (http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/great-botanical-garden

s-of-the-world) which is not endorsed by Reuters:

1. Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Brooklyn, New York

Founded in 1910, this 52-acre New York institution boasts 12,000 resident plant species as well as the Steinhardt Conservatory, Shakespeare Garden, and the C. V. Starr Bonsai Museum. It also boasts a unique claim to fame as in 2006, one of the rarest, largest and stinkiest flowers, the Sumatran Amorphophallus titanium or corpse flower, blossomed there.

2. Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, Western Cape, South Africa

An 89-acre spread in the eastern slopes of Cape Town's Table Mountain, Kirstenbosch is remarkable aesthetically and historically. Founded in 1913, this is the first national botanical garden established for the express purpose of local flora conservation. Perhaps most famous is the garden's trademark Crane Flower, a yellow version of which is named Mandela's Gold.