Plants
The Gardens contain over 7,000 different plants and are home to The British National Bonsai Collection. One of the oldest specimens is the "Omiya tree", a 250-year-old Juniperus chinensis in the informal upright style, presented to the collection in 1995 by the then city of Omiya, Japan. There are many unusual and notable plants in the gardens including two fine Himalayan Cedars near the fountain which were planted from seeds given to the gardens in the 1840s by James Watt Junior, son of James Watt whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution. A plant found nowhere else is the fern Dicksonia ×lathamii which is a hybrid between Dicksonia antarctica and Dicksonia arborescens, raised by ex-Curator W. B. Latham more than one hundred years ago.
Read more about this topic: Birmingham Botanical Gardens
Famous quotes containing the word plants:
“We have been God-like in our planned breeding of our domesticated plants and animals, but we have been rabbit-like in our unplanned breeding of ourselves.”
—A.J. (Arnold Joseph)
“The holly and the ivy
Are plants that are well known
Of all the trees that grow in the woods
The holly bears the crown.”
—Unknown. The Holly and the Ivy (l. 1–4)
“Probably if our lives were more conformed to nature, we should not need to defend ourselves against her heats and colds, but find her our constant nurse and friend, as do plants and quadrupeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)