Journey to Oz

We went to the botanical garden of Australia on Friday the 30 of January. This garden is a man made rainforest that cost a millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars to create. This garden has many interesting plants and animals.

The figure above is called a Banksia tree. The yellow brush-like thing is kind of like its flower; when the flower dries out, the seed compartments stick out as you can see in the third figure. The seeds can only come out after a fire believe it or not. Only fire can break the seed compartments.

Above are some of the large plants in the garden. The first figure on the left is a picture of giant fern bushes. Obviously the climate makes the fern quite large; about 4 ft in diameter. The next picture is a picture of a spear lilly; let me clarify, the three large torch things are the lillies. In full bloom, they are bright red so that they look like torches aflame. the next picture is of me and behind me is a spear lilly bush without the lilly.

The first figure is a picture of a grass tree. It is a large stump that grows 1 mm a year and it grows, you guessed it, grass. The Aboriginis used the stump wood to make spears. The second figure is of a cauliflower hakea. This bushes' appearance is decieving because it grows fairly sharp, stiff, needles, when the needles don't look very appealing.

We saw quite a few of these lizards at the gardens; and two types that we have seen. The first two pictues shows one type, the other four is another type. I feel so stupid that I can't find out their names. If there is a lizard expert out there somewhere reading this, he would think that I am such an idiot.

Well great news; we are goint to Heron Island on Sunday at about 10:30 pm. In Utah we would be leaving at about 8:30 am on Sunday.