A Gander Through The Royal Botanical Gardens

This past Thursday the weather in Sydney was beautiful, clear skies and sunny, so I decided to spend it at the Royal Botanical Gardens. Great idea. The gardens are absolutely beautiful, and walking through them I forget that I am in a bustling city (similar to going to Central Park in NYC). I also get lost inside the gardens. One morning I attempted to jog through them and then started panicking when I couldn't find my way back out! Thus I decided it would be wise to partake in the daily walking tour through the gardens. David, an enthusiastic botanist and a historian (I don't know if he is actually either one of them on the basis of holding a degree, but in my mind he is qualified to be labeled as such), was my tour guide. He was a cheery, adorable old man whose face lit up when he talked about the gardens. And this man knew what he was talking about! He was practically a walking, talking Royal Botanical Gardens encyclopedia. I thoroughly enjoyed our hour and a half journey through the gardens together, and here is a bit of what we saw and I learned.

David, The Best Garden Guide

Isn't he just so cute? You almost made me want to become a botanist, David...almost.

The Garden Pathway

Lesson 1: The big tree on the right, the one with the tentacle-like roots hanging from it's trunk, is a Dragon's-Blood Tree because it has red sap.

Palm Grove

Lesson 2: Called so because of the large array of palm trees living here. The skinny palm tree in the middle below was used as a walking stick by folks way back in the day. 

Sydney Fernery 

Lesson 3:  Below you see a tree is being engulfed by another tree (the names of which I did not retain. I am a poor pupil). Apparently in the rain forest, this tree had a hard time growing with its roots in the ground so instead it plants its seeds in branches of other trees and then the roots grow downwards until they reach the ground. David explained it much better. But the point is that what you see in the photo is a tree growing downward over another tree.

Lesson 4: The plant below is alive and well. But as you see in the following photo, the long stem is dried up and brown. The aboriginals used this to make their spears. Smart fellows.

Bats!

Lesson 5: There are a TON of bats in the gardens. Seeing this was so creepy and cool. They are flying fox bats (because their bodies look like a fox) and they only eat fruit. Good news for me, I'm not looking to turn into Dracula on this trip. The problem with all the bats, however, is that they are destroying all the trees in the garden, as you see in this photo (see there are leaves on the bottom, but none towards the top). This has created quite a dilemma for the Royal Botanical Garden officials, but it's great for taking pictures of the nocturnal little suckers snoozing. 

The World's Oldest Tree!

Lesson 6: This tree here is the Wollemi Pine, and according to David (and the sign posted by the tree) it is almost as rare as a dinosaur! These trees existed back in the day with the dinos and were believed to have been extinct for millions of years and were known only through fossils. That was until 1994 when a hiker found one north-west of Sydeny in the Wollemi National Park. It was quite a big deal. I admire your resilience Wollemi Pine; way to defy the odds!

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