Saturday, November 3, 2007

UCR Botanical Gardens

We spent about an hour this afternoon walking through the UC Riverside botanical gardens. According to their website, the area is approximately 40 acres and consists of 4 miles of trails. Unlike some other botanical gardens I've been to in the Midwest that were indoors, this one was entirely outdoors. This, afterall, is southern California, and the only people that complain about any "cold" weather are the locals who don't know any better! Speaking of the weather, it cooperated today by being completely sunny and in the low 80s for a high. Fortunately the air quality was good enough that we were able to get some decent pictures of the San Bernardino mountains.

Our first stop along the tour was the fragrant and colorful rose garden. There were plenty of places to sit and relax while taking in the view.

Most of the plants that were planted in the garden are native to California, but not necessarily to southern California or lower elevations like in Riverside. There were also numerous exotic/ornamental/introduced species that one might find throughout the state, and fortunately they had little signs next to them saying what species they were and to where they were native. A couple of examples below:

To the left is a distant shot of a floss silk tree, native to the tropical and subtropical forests of South America. To the right is a close-up of its trunk, which you can see is covered in some wicked looking spines. The spines are used by the tree to store excess water, but I'm sure they also play a role in deterring predation by hungry herbivores.

There was also a little patch of bamboo, which is native to Asia. It's hard to believe that this stuff is a type of grass, but then again, carp are a species of minnow. Go figure.











Like I said, the views of the nearby mountains were fairly good today, and here you can see the San Bernardino mountains in the distance, with the UC Riverside campus in the foreground.

It was nice to get out and see some green today without having to drive into the mountains. The best part was that admission to the gardens was optional (we paid anyway), and parking was a whopping 25 cents/hour. Can't beat that!




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