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The Wadi Jawrah Mimusops Garden is a new botanic garden which is under construction on a 25ha site in Jizan province, southern Saudi Arabia. The garden is being established around a stand of 14 Mimusops laurifolia (Forssk) Friis trees, the second largest stand of this species in the Arabian Peninsula. The major objectives of this garden are to conserve these trees, recreate the rare valley forest habitat of which they are characteristic, establish a nursery for the propagation and ecological restoration of rare species, and to provide a valuable resource for conservation education in the region. This paper covers these aims, the conservation importance of M. laurifolia and valley forest and some challenges and recommendations for the new garden.

Botanic gardens in the Arabian Peninsula and adjacent countries, along with institutions such as museums, universities and research centres, have long played a major role in the exploration, identification and conservation of this region’s flora and vegetation. The primary aim of botanic gardens in the past was to study the plant world from the horticultural point of view and to cultivate plants of economic or medicinal importance. However, at present, particularly in arid regions such as the Arabian Peninsula, the activities of botanic gardens are focused primarily on (i) the study and exploration of the region’s rapidly vanishing flora, thereby safeguarding gene pools of wild species, and (ii) the assessment and preservation of species that may be of importance to humans and animals for food, medicines, fibre and amenity. Recently established botanic gardens in the region, including the proposed King Abdullah International Gardens in Riyadh and Oman Botanic Garden near Muscat, will enhance existing conservation activities concerning the ailing and rapidly vanishing floristic components of the Arabian Peninsula.