Berkeley Botanical Garden

Yesterday Lauren and I decided that it would be an awfully good time to go and visit the enormous University Botanical Gardens. I've been looking for stuff to do online and it has had very good reviews, so we decided to go. To get there was easy, although about an hour walk, it only took about 20 minutes if we caught a bus that went from the campus right to the Gardens. Of course, we missed the first bus, so although we only walked about 10 minutes, it still took us about an hour to get there.



Getting there we were immediately stuck with the location of the gardens; they were tucked away in between huge beautiful hills with a view of the bay. Here are some pics






Getting inside, we found out that the park was divided into different types of plants depending on their world location. That is to say, there was a section of the park devoted to plants of south Africa, to plants of South America, Asia, etc. Each of these regions attempted to replicate nature plants and environments. We planned, or at least tried to plan, our trip around the park so we could it all, and headed on our way to the deserts of America. First we made our way through the arid house (for particularly sensitive climates, they had greenhouses).




Walking out of the arid house, we next encountered some real desert plants.


After getting through the deserts of Berkeley, we entered another house.

AWESOME!!




After checking out the sweet carnivorous plants section, we made our way into the lush landscape of Asia.




They had a beautiful Japanese garden. We ate our packed lunch here.


Next we made our way to south Africa.



We saw like 20 of these guys.





The beauty of the flowers was overwhelming; the entire park was filled with incredible plants. We next headed to the Mediterranean and a view of the bay that our ticket lady told us was awesome. She wasn't kidding.







It may be hard to see in the pictures, but the view from on top of the hill we were on was spectacular, we could see far out into the bay. After hitting up this area, we made our way down to a few other specialty gardens. First there was the Crops of the World Garden, and then there was the Chinese Medicinal Herbs Garden. They were pretty sweet.




Ooo, helps cure congestion.



Garlic!




After this we made our way to the coolest part of the Botanical Gardens in my opinion, the Tropical House. Part of the reason that this area was so interesting was because of a very special plant that happened to be in bloom while we were there; a plant they called the Little Stinker.




A chocolate tree! Well, I think cocoa technically.



And its reliable counterpart vanilla. I tried asking if they could make me a shake out of it, but they wouldn't.


And here is the beauty we came to see, Little Stinker. Its real name is Titan arum, and it is a plant native to Indonesia. There are only a few of these bad boys cultivated around the world. The coolest part though was the fact that we got to see this flower in bloom. First off, they've had this plant for about 10 years and this is the first time it has bloomed, and second, the blooming only lasts a day or two. It had just opened up the night before we got there. SWEET!! That's why you'll see the guy having a shirt with the plant on it, its um, you know, kind of a big deal.


Don't let its pretty exterior fool you though, this plant has the nickname little stinker, with good reason. Its common name is actually the corpse plant. When it blooms, as it is these pictures, it actually emits the stench of rotting corpse. During the first 8 hours of its bloom the stench will knock you over its so potent, according to our tour guide (the guy with the plant shirt). Smelling the inside of the plant gave us taste of this delightful odor. What a cool plant.




A slightly less extraordinary, but still cool, little plant to end on was this little guy. When you touch its leaves it will close. I made a little video of it.




After leaving the tropical house we started wandering out of the park. Here are a few pics of this wandering.






So, once again, a great day in Berkeley. One of the most beautiful displays of flowers and plants that I have ever seen. Sadly, it was time that we get home and get some work done. Thanks for swinging by.