Transcript Some views of the Alpine Garden of the UBC Botanical Garden

Some views of the Alpine Garden
of the UBC Botanical Garden
Thanks to Ola Rogulska, who kindly
provided these images.
What this slide show is for:
• To show you something of the “lay of the
land” at the Alpine garden
• To give you an idea of what features can be
observed
• To at least begin to suggest what sorts of
questions could be worth asking
• And the pictures are very nice - enjoy!
Note the many flower-colours: pink and red in the
centre, white in the shrubs at the right, and orange in
the wide shrub visible beyond the big flat rock,
below – and the brown/orange clumps of grass really
are that colour, and healthy – why?
In this view, we are standing at the top of the North
end of the Alpine garden, looking roughly southwest.
Most of the area around the camera contains South
American plants, and the right-hand half of the image
is the Australia/New Zealand zone.
Here we see the cones (fruiting structures) of a blue spruce in the North American zone
of the Garden. Note the waxy greyish colour of the needles on this plant – why should
they look like this and not simply green? And why are the cones this odd purplish
colour? It can’t be to attract insects, this is a wind-pollinated plant!
Real height of a
cone is about
10cm.
A part of the Mediterranean/southern European zone of the Garden. Many
alpine plants flower in late spring and early summer in Vancouver’s climate,
though this may not coincide with the flowering-time in the native habitats.
The pink flowers of Dianthus (carnations) are borne singly but those of the
flowering onion occur in clusters… why should this be the case? (What else
would you want to know to address this question?) And what purpose might
colour serve?
Dianthus flowers
are about 2-2.5cm
across.
Another view of the South America zone. In the foreground and running over the rocks all
the way down the slope are tightly ground-hugging plants of several species… but mostly
they are just resting on, rather than rooted in, the ground (i.e. they are very low shrubs, not
groundcovers). Each mat has a single woody trunk, and the mat can be peeled back at the
edge. Why should plants grow this way?
The square stones
are about 50cm
wide, and the
gravel path below
is 1.5-2m wide.
This photo is looking back up the hill down which we looked in slide 5. The purple-flowered
plants in the foreground are orchids. Notice the wide range of foliage-colours visible in this
view: dark and light greens, grey (between the orchid-flowers), purplish, yellowish – why
should plants have so many different colours, given that all leaves have broadly similar
functions?
The purple flower-spike
measures about 10cm
tall, and the purple
shrub in the middledistance is 2m tall.
Here we see a small representation of the variety of plants which may be viewed at the Alpine
garden, in this case around the pond located at the foot of the Asian section, near the south end.
The photo emphasizes the difficulty of extracting patterns from the diversity of nature;
elements of dozens of patterns can be seen in just this one view.
Don’t be upset by the variety of organisms! Once you have a plan, and can see things in person
and receive advice about what you see, everything will make more sense. Make sure you read
the Field Paper document thoroughly, and follow all instructions!