1camera1mom: Kirstenbosch, Cape Town

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Kirstenbosch, Cape Town - Part 1

Boomslang (Tree Snake):
Tree Canopy Walkway

Our family is part of a house church and the manager of our local Karoo Desert Botanical Garden is too. Recently, he invited the house church to the famous Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden in Cape Town (where he used to work) and gave us a fun, informative tour.

We learned that our local botanical garden was originally only a nursery for Kirstenbosch, to provide indigenous plants from the arid region of the Karoo. Later the Karoo nursery also became its own botanical garden.

Kirstenbosch was established in 1913 and was the first botanical garden in the world to be devoted to preserving its country's indigenous flora. They have over 7,000 species in cultivation, including many rare and threatened species. Plants from the Karoo are kept in a custom built glasshouse as they cannot survive outdoors in Cape Town's climate.

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Mother and Chick: Spotted Eagle-Owls

Spotted Eagle-Owl Chick

Baobab: The Upside-Down Tree
inside the glasshouse

Camphor Avenue

The trees of Camphor Avenue are just over 100 years old and were planted by Cecil John Rhodes in 1898. The path along which Rhodes planted his avenue was the old wagon road, probably in use since the late 1600's for dragging timber from the forests.

It is said that he planted the trees to represent the outposts of the British Empire to honor Queen Victoria, hoping that she would visit the Cape, but unfortunately she never did. Beautiful Clivia flowers from Southern Africa grow happily under the camphor trees from China.