Some views of the Alpine Garden of the UBC Botanical Garden

1
Some views of the Alpine Garden of the UBC
Botanical Garden

• Thanks to Ola Rogulska, who kindly provided these
  images.

2
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!

3
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.
4
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 cant be to attract
insects, this is a wind-pollinated plant!
Real height of a cone is about 10cm.
5
A part of the Mediterranean/southern European
zone of the Garden. Many alpine plants flower in
late spring and early summer in Vancouvers
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.
6
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.
7
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 middle-distance is 2m
tall.
8
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. Dont 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!