Visiting the Botanical Garden

About to have a closer look at the green inhabitants of Victoria, I decided to get another lesson about them in the Botanical garden. And as the city of Melbourne, the garden does not attempt to hide it's colonial past. Some beddings could easily be found near the English Channel coast, too. But of course, the main topic is Australian plants.

So I brushed up my knowledge about Australian trees and was glad to get at least an idea, what a treefern forrest would be like. I love their wild, lush and acient appearance and wasn't sure I would be able to enjoy it in the wild. (Later, it did made me laugh!)

This impressive Cupressus macrocarpa from Canada reigns a part of the garden. Around it, there also are some shadow dwellers from other parts of the world like the Paradise Plant (now Justicia carnea) and Canna.

Another recently finished feature of the garden is the planted volcano. Around it's base, there are still trees to be found - in this case the Queensland bottle tree. Climbing up and around the volcano, one passes more and more arid plants - not that much a real plant community, rather providing a picture of the idea. So one passes Mother-in-Law's Cushions (Echinocactus grusonii) from America and Tree Aeoniums (Aeonium arboreum) depicting lava flows. The crater is filled by a lake with floating islands. These islands are an experiment of natural water clearing, but may need some fixing - or more time.

After a long flight from Germany to Australia, one knows it's far from home. Still, sometimes one may forget it and then gets a reminder that might be a small one. A scenic little temple like this in Europe would have very simple or Acanthus capitals. This one features something that is more native: Staghorn ferns, Platycerium superbum.