Green is Good: The Botanical Garden of Funchal

Wednesday, February 23

Jardim Botânico

As I mentioned earlier, Wednesday was nutzo--we went to like 12 places in one day.  One of the highlights of this day was the Botanical Garden.  Very much like the Mercado (Tuesday), the pictures speak for themselves.  Suffice it to say here that the amazing weather made for optimal botanical appreciation.  This garden was not laid out in the same way that I am used to--it was much more like an English garden in that everything is sort of just planted all over the place instead of perfectly manicured and quarantined in it's designated hidey-hole.  I appreciated this fact, because you got the sense that you were really seeing the lush, tropical plants in a natural way.  Besides, how could you really trim and tame something like this:

Right?  Looks like a Dr. Seuss character, no?

Here are some of my other faves from their wonderful collection:

 Dinosaur Food!!!

These two plants were present on Madiera (and elsewhere on planet earth) during prehistoric times.  I find that fact truly amazing.

Papyrus!

The pulp from these two plants were used to make paper going back to....well, you know how far back.  Way back.

Boy Meets Girl

bow chicka bow bow.......

This is the girl
☜





This is the boy ☟ 

Basically what happens here, is this:  the boy has an 'organ' which is visible on the left if you peer through the two leaves at about 10:00.  Hint: it's brown.  The pollen travels to the nearest available female plant e.g., the one above, and the pollen settles in the center of the female plant.

And that, boys and girls, is how the baby plants are made. The End.

And now for a special shout out to my peeps in Phoenix, Arizona!  Mom and I were thinking especially of you in the succulents and cactus section!  xoxo

Agave!

This cactus below was like 20 feet high.  I just couldn't get it all in the camera without pissing everyone off, so this was as far back as I could get.  It will have to do, but trust me when I say that it was super tall.

This is my very favorite picture from the garden.  I love how shadowy it is in this one spot when the entire rest of the garden was really hot and bright, and I love how the guy is here and the sea is there.  Captures the day pretty nicely.   Go Sony Cybershot.

Fin.