Acacia Envy

A couple of weeks ago, my horticulture class visited the Australian National Botanic Gardens in Canberra to see their extensive Acacia (wattle) collection in flower. The weather alternated between drizzle and bucketing rain but clusters of tiny golden balls brightened the gloom.

We’ve just finished studying eucalypts and wattles, along with methods of identifying them, so it was time to see them in all their majesty. I love my local botanic gardens but hanging out there in the rain has never been high on my priority list. However, it really was worth it – you get to see a whole different side of the gardens. There is something quite magical about the way the mist circled up around the trees and the water highlighted features I’d never noticed before.

The ANBG have just created a new exhibit featuring Acacias that really is pretty cool. The exhibit, called Tree of Trees is open to the public from 1 September to 25 October, but I’m hoping they’ll leave it there to let the trees grow. It features 100 different species of wattle, planted out in the shape of a tree, and showcasing the enormous diversity of the genus.

For further details of the exhibition and to see a full sized image of the design with all of the species, see the Atlas of Living Australia website. For those of you in Canberra, go check it out at the ANBG on Black Mountain. And for those of you who really love wattle, check out the World Wide Wattle website for everything you ever wanted to know about them!