Xiamen Botanical Gardens

Originally posted 22nd April 2015

by The Pearl

Entrance to Xiamen Botanical Garden

The Xiamen Botanical Gardens (aka The Wanshi Botanical Garden) was founded in 1960.  It, together with Gulang Yu Island, is categorised as one of China’s AAAA scenic spots. It contains more than 6500 species in ten collections as well as being the home of a number of the province’s best Temples.
What we didn’t realise before we got some

Garden Map

way into the park was that it is built on the side of a steep hill and in the heat of southern China it was jolly hot and damp work getting around, and by the time we had got ourselves three quarters of the way up the hill I wished we had realised that there was a bus that we could have used to get ourselves up to the top to start off with and then walked down instead of up.
As well as having a splendid collection of tropical and sub-tropical plants the excellent landscape gardeners had been at work again, and had created some beautiful settings for many of the plants.
Not far into the park, we came across a large lake, which although relatively empty of water, had some typical Chinese garden features of a waterside pavilion and a semi-circular hump-backed bridge.  It was probably this empty of water because it is only in this month of April that the average monthly rainfall starts to really climb – with relatively little falling on average since the end of September.  By the end of the summer, I expect the lake will be full again.
We didn’t have the time or the stamina to look round all the collections, but the Botanical Gardens are split into various sections such as Cactus World, Palm Island and Araucaria Lawn.  One bugbear was that although some of the trees had plants labels, almost all of the other plants did not, which I found surprising for a botanical gardens.

Tradescantia zebrina

Codiaeum variegatum

Many of the plants in the park are used as pot plants in the UK.  You may recognize Tradescantia zebrina, which was used as a ground cover plant and Codiaeum variegatum which was being grown as a hedge.

Aucuba japonica

Alpinia zerumbet “Variegata”

Other plants do grow outside in the UK such as the spotted laurel (Aucuba japonica), whilst others I had not seen before, such as this variegated ginger, which apparently has white flowers that resemble seashells which give rise to its common names of shell flower or shell ginger.  All of these are, or could be, used by floral designers to good effect.
Because of the lack of labelling there were plants that I have had to research once I got back to my computer and others which I am not sure about, so let me know what I’ve got these wrong, but I think the one on the left is an Arum italicum and the one on the right a Gleditidsia or Locust tree – if the long green seed pods turn brown then they are also used by floral designers.

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Just as there are mass plantings of Fatsia japonica around Shanghai’s gardens, there were also large areas of these philodendrons which I think are Philodendron bipinnatifidum, commonly known as the lacy tree philodendron or selloum here, in Xiamen’s botanic garden.   It is known for its ground covering abilities, using aerial roots to support itself to as much as 3 metres across.  It can tolerate some freezing winter weather, in which case it will die back and then regrow in the spring, so if you’ve got a large area to cover it might be a good plant to try.

Monstera deliciosa

Another plant that produces aerial roots that help to support it is the Monstera deliciosa or Swiss Cheese plant.  My parents used to have one of these  – they were very popular in the UK in the 1960s – and we thought it had grown quite big. It was put outside to die when we moved house as it was considered to big to move.  However it was nowhere near the size of this plant which is living up to its name.

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The area known as the Hundred Flower Hall was a bit of a disappointment certainly as far as the number of flowers there were to see, but it had some nice buildings around a lake.  The griselinia in the foreground of the right hand picture was the type of plant that was cloud-pruned in my previous blog post.  In one of the small ponds in this area there was some

Pistea

Pistea or water lettuce growing.  I’ve had this in my pond at home as an oxygenating plant and somewhere for the goldfish to hide under, but it dies off in the winter in the UK.

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In one of the buildings of the Hundred Flower Hall was a display of pot plants, which included what I think is an interestingly patterned Aglaonema and down underneath the building was a display of dendrobium
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orchids.  We’ve got a couple of white ones in the kitchen in Kent together with one purple one which Richard has managed to keep in flower for 18 months by dunking them in a sink full of water once a month for an hour or so.  Seeing the orchid displays here in China he has got more and more interested in them – we have already bought a huge bowl full of purple ones for our apartment, and they have just finished flowering.  We hope that he can work his magic and get them going again.  Anyway after seeing these he said “you know, orchids are something I could seriously get into”.  Before we got married he used to import white and purple Thai dendrobium orchids for Marks and Spencer and he got some white ones sent over especially for our wedding. I can see them becoming a bit of an obsession one day.

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Bougainvillea spectabilis

Potted Bougainvillea

Bougainvillea spectabilis

There weren’t that many flowers out in the park, though, but there were plants of Bougainvillea spectabilis (a native of South America) growing in large pots in many places in the Garden, which added a bit of colour to a number of mainly green areas.

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Further up the hill there were some large and beautiful stands of bamboo, with differing colours of stems planted in blocks and I liked these bins made from tree trunks, which were all around the park.

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Other trees and plants formed an interesting spectacle: these tall palms, the trees getting a foothold in amongst the rocks, the Strelitzia – I wonder what sort of flower this one will have – the tree ferns and the Banyan trees with their aerial roots that will go on to stabilise the tree once they touch the ground.
   A S 

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We didn’t have time to go into the Cactus World, but the plants at the entrance looked varied and interesting – perhaps another time.    

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And throughout the garden there were shady place in which to sit and listen to the birds that were flitting about and singing in the canopy.                   

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Calliandra haematocephala

Tabebuia aurea

There were a few flowering trees, a couple of which I have since managed to identify, but I would have liked to have known what the others were.  The purple and white flowers on this tree (LHS) had a lovely scent. But I have no idea what type of trees these last three are.

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Tropical water lilies (lotus) come in various colours, but you can’t get them for UK ponds because the water will be too cold.  But they come in a variety of colours including blues, reds, purples and peach and made and interesting display in the lotus pond.

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Outside the Botanical gardens is the Monument to Revolutionary Martyrs and the Cemetery of Martyrs which we passed on our way back down the hill on our way to lunch.