Botanical gardens

[paul m]

... and help needed!
I like botanical gardens if they're good - have a wide range of plants which are properly labelled. As well as seeing beutiful beds and interesting flowers you can come out a little better educated. Sheffield Botanical Gardens was a sad sight towards the end of the last century but has been renovated and, in particular, its glass houses have been restored and a good collection of plants brought in. Some very interesting and some which confuse me because I'm not sure they were correctly labelled so I'd be pleased if anyone could advise ....

These five pavilions, being Victorian, were devoted to different parts of the British Empire! In the Australian house was this 'blueberry'

Dianella tasmanica which looks like a monocotyledon. Any further information on it? Is it edible?
Also in the Australian pavilion was this:


Which was, apparently, labelled Anigozanthos flavidus, a 'kangaroo's paw' but doesn't look like pictures on the web ... any other ideas?

Walking into South Africa we have a Protea in seed:

fascinating plants because their seeds won't germinate until exposed to fire and smoke ...
But also this rather strange plant - getting on for 2m tall - the upper leaf surface of which look rusty ....
- the only label that I could see mentioned Kalanchoe which I don't recall having any members like this .... but there, what do I know?

So, shall appreciate any comments from people who may have these as garden weeds ....
My veridct on Shffield Botanical Garden is good for plants but only 5 out of ten for labelling!

[paul m]

A lot of the SBG is just grass with a few big trees - a part of this grassland has been sown with North America plants to produce a very rough approximation of a prairie habitat:

No bison yet but there is going to be a splendid mass of colour here at the end of August.

I'm a great fancier of "Alpine" plants so always look for 'new' things in rockeries and the like. I've never seen this monocotyledon:



The flowers look a bit like Leucojum, maybe?????

Any advice? Thanks, Paul

[paul m]

Continuing my tour of botanical gardens of the world - to one in the centre of Madrid. An excellent place to have a quiet siesta in the shade after tramping the halls of the Prado; but, most importantly, this is a proper BG with nearly all the plants correctly labelled. It even has a label explaining the labels:

BGs are mainly useful for identifying plants that your not familiar with, or are familiar with but can't find in the books, usually because they're exotic:

..... but sometimes because you take them for granted: I've long taken Celtis australis for an ash ...

The beds here are not particularly ordered by Family but usually into uses and forms e.g. culinary herbs, edible fruits, timber. One quirky bed designed by someone at Reading University to illustrate a typically English bed:


The gardens were laid out by Carlos III, I think, and have lots of statuary including a fountain in a pond: much welcomed by the resident sparrows:

[paul m]

Tinkerbell, on another thread, noted the importance of Sidney Botanical Gardens in the conservation of bats:
Flying foxes - Botanic Gardens Trust - Sydney, Australia

There are three sizeable BGs in NSW - anyone familiar with them?

[paul m]

This must be a massive site in its full glory - it runs E-W down the hill and from N-S it has been quarried into the hill and runs of steps lead down into the main valley.




It looks as if this was once part of a grand gardens on a palatial scale. Unfortunately, there are now large areas without access and other parts have rather run down - for lack of money possibly?

Nevertheless, what remains is quite beautiful in some places with some very interesting plants - many of which have labels ) - which is how I know that these two plants, though seemingly very different, belong to the same family (Moraceae):
Maclura poifera

A 'false orange' although many of us would use that name for Philadelphus sp. and:

Ficus macrophylla macrophylla a huge buttressed Australian tree.

Lots of other plants - some with very impressive flowers such as this (I assume) Hibiscus, sadly unlabelled!

[Tiggrx]

The Anigozanthus is certainly one of that genus but I couldn't confirm as to species.

The Kalanchoe is K. beharensis (Velvet Leaf)

I think that the Leucojum is L. autumnale (Autumn Snowflake)

I like the Botanic Gardens at Oxford, though I haven't been for some years. They are well worth a visit.

[paul m]

Originally Posted by Tiggrx

The Anigozanthus is certainly one of that genus but I couldn't confirm as to species.

The Kalanchoe is K. beharensis (Velvet Leaf)

I think that the Leucojum is L. autumnale (Autumn Snowflake)

I like the Botanic Gardens at Oxford, though I haven't been for some years. They are well worth a visit.

Thanks. Yes, the Oxford Gardens are good and beautifully located.

[paul m]

For lovers of Botanical Gardens. like me, Lisbon is a great place. The Actual Jardim Botanico is hidden away in the centre of the city with access only trough the car park of the university! There are a couple of glasshouses which are very run down but a fsacinating, well-labelled garden which concentrates on the flora of Portugal and some of its former colonies.
A lot of these are very pretty but others are interesting commercially; I had not previously realised that the source of capers was a rather beautiful shrub:


After the botanical garden proper there is an unexpectedly large arboretum:
[img]http://www.wildabouttheworld.com/gallery/data//517/thumbs/WAWlbg
3672D-d-top-q.jpg[/img]

There are other places in Lisbon labelled as botanical gardens: didn't get to most of them ....

[paul m]

One interesting place, not quite a botanical garden proper (some of the plants weren't labelled ), is the Estufa Fria - a large greenhouse (actually part of it is outdoors) south facing in an old quarry.
Some spectacular plants like this one (unfortunately not labelled - any ideas?)



A bit dilapidated in places - I hope they manage to get it repaired.

Originally Posted by paul m

There are other places in Lisbon labelled as botanical gardens: didn't get to most of them ....

[paul m]

An interesting garden is the Jardi Botanic de Caixa de Girona - which is actually on the coast at Cap Roig near Calella de Palafrugell. It's divided into several compartments including a nun's garden and ones for the Canary Islands, Latin America (including cacti) &c but has one area for native Mediterranean plants - all beautifully labelled!

The labels are multilingual and go to show the hazards of using 'common names'. One I remember was Cercis siliquastrum which in English is called the "Judas Tree" but in Spanish it is the "Tree of Judea" and in Catalan the "Tree of Love".

Palafrugell for instance has a nice little museum dedicated to cork - the history and uses thereof ....

Museu del Suro | Museo del Corcho | Cork Museum - Visita'ns