Sunday morning at the Royal Botanic Gardens

I don't have a lot to say, but I do have pictures to post.

Yesterday we went to the Royal Botanic Gardens. Wiebke wanted to do a guided walk that's offered for free, so we got up early and arrived for the 10:30 blast off time. By 11:30 I think we'd traveled about 100 m from where the walk started. Our guide was very nice, very informative, and very slow. More walking, less talking! So we only covered about 1/4 of the gardens, but plan to go back tomorrow.

Some highlights:
[hint: you can click on any of these pictures for a bigger version]

The Gardens were founded in 1816 - fun factoid! (more of those to come)


 
tree full of bats, known here as flying foxes


Flooded Gum or Rose Gum tree - planted in 1956

Australia is home to 800 kinds of eucalyptus (or gum) trees

 
a native Australian tree, the Euodia
Most bees in the world are stingless beees. What we commonly think of when we hear "bee" is the European honey bee. This is the type of bee that is diseased and dying all over the world. In fact, European honey bees in Australia are the only bees not carrying the disease. It's hoped that these bees can be brought over to the rest of the world to replace the dying bees.



see below for example

 
yeah, they're big


a Wollemi pine
this one was planted in 2007 in honor of the Dalai Lama's visit

and finally:


when trees die, art is made

I guess I'm out of fun factoids. We did sample some fruit of some of the trees - small and pink, the aborginals call them lillipillis. They were berry sized and shaped (one sample was more grape sized) but had the texture of an apple. Very tart!

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