Evolution Garden

This area is designed as an education trail to show how plants have evolved over millions of years.

 

Our focal point is a fossilised stump of one of the giant club mosses which flourished some 310 million years ago, in the Carboniferous period and which contributed – eventually – to the Coal Measures.

Blocks of coal have been added to show what such plants finally became. The fossil was found in the Chapeltown area by a party of railway navvies in 1875. In the early 1980s it was moved from High Hazels Park to the Botanical Gardens.

There is a remarkable collection of conifers including Metasequoia glyptostraboides (Dawn Redwood), Sequoiadendron giganteum (Giant Redwood), Sequoia sempervirens (Coast Redwood) and Pseudolarix amabilis (Golden Larch).

The garden demonstrates how different plants are related to each other and how plants are related to animals and fungi.  The layout of the garden takes you on a journey through time along a series of paths.  Each division of the path relates to a major development in the plant kingdom. 

  • Fossil stump of ancient lycopod Lepidodendron

    (310 million years old) - November 2019

  • Blocks of coal - November 2019

  • Fern beds - August 2024

  • Ginkgo biloba - July 2015

  • Sequoiadendron giganteum (Giant Redwood) - February 2014

  • Araucaria araucana (Monkey Puzzle) -December 2021

  • Wollemia nobilis (Wollemi Pine) December 2021

  • Magnolia ‘Leonard Messel’ - April 2024

  • Ranunculus ‘Brazen Hussy’ Eudicot Bed 1 - April 2024

  • Tulipa ‘Ballerina’ Monocot Bed 1 - April 2024