Kings Park and Botanic Garden, Perth

(Pictured: The huge and wondrous flower of a spectacularly silver coloured gum tree in Kings Park.)

Kings Park and Botanic Garden is a must-see if you visit Perth, Western Australia. It is a huge park with an area of over 4 square kilometres so if you are native flower and plant lover you are going to need at least 2 days to explore. We visited in late April 2009.

At Kings Park I found beautiful specimens of Banksia asbyii (artwork #154), Grevillea manglesii (WA’s state emblem) and Eucalytus caesia (artwork #161) amongst hundreds of other wonderful, colourful and strange WA native plants.

Clare went on an early morning volunteer guided tour of the gardens and I was delighted when she returned to our hotel clutching a Stenocarpus sinuatus (artwork #155) which the cockatoos had thrown down at her feet.

Remember to visit the giant Boab tree, once in the path of a proposed highway 3200 km to the north of Perth and replanted in the gardens — From the Kings Park and Botanic Garden website:

“The story of the Giant Boab ‘Gija Jumulu’ captured world-wide media coverage during July 2008 as it journeyed over 3,200 kilometres, from Warmun in WA’s Kimberley region, to Kings Park in Perth. Never before had a mature tree of this nature been transported across such a distance on land. The iconic tree, estimated to be 750 years old, weighs 36 tonnes and stretches 14 metres high and eight metres wide (branch span). Its trunk measures 2.5 metres in diameter.”