BRISBANE BOTANIC GARDENS
MT COOT-THA
SELF-GUIDING INTERPRETIVE WALKS
White arrow trail / Aboriginal plant trail / Australian plant communities trail
Welcome to the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, Mt Coot-tha
This brochure contains general informationon the major attractions in the gardens
as well as suggestions for three differentself-guiding walks. There are 56 hectares
of living displays to explore. These arearranged in either themed beds or in
geographical regions representing plantsfrom around the world.
Brisbane has two botanic gardens, one in the Central BusinessDistrict and the other at Mt Coot-tha. Both are managed andmaintained by Brisbane City Council.
Brisbane Botanic Gardens Mt Coot-tha is recognised asQueensland’s premier subtropical botanic gardens. Founded in1970, and officially opened in 1976, the 56 hectares of gardens
feature more than 20,000 plants representing approximately5000 species from around the world. Arid, tropical and temperateplants, both native and exotic, thrive outdoors in our city, makingthese gardens a major tourist attraction.
Plant collections at the gardens are well established and includea fascinating series of distinctly different gardens arrangedin thematic and geographical displays. The Australian Plant
Communities section of the gardens occupies half of the totalarea, giving a tremendous opportunity to view a large collectionof Australian native plants.
The latest addition to the gardens opened in 2015. Deliveredas part of the Legacy Way tunnel project, this four hectare areaincludes a conservation walk, kitchen garden, new lagoon and
children’s playground.
With these exciting new developments, extensive plantcollections, educational and research programs, referenceand lending library, and the Queensland Herbarium onsite,the Brisbane Botanic Gardens Mt Coot-tha offers casual visitorsand amateur or professional horticulturists a large variety ofrewarding experiences.
Garden highlights
Fragrant Plant and Herb Garden
The wide pathways of this garden allow easy wheelchair access.The garden contains culinary, fragrant and medicinal herbs as wellas flowers and aromatic foliage to delight the senses. You areinvited to smell the blooms in season.
Exotic Rainforest
The Exotic Rainforest contains trees, shrubs and vines native to othercountries, in deep valleys of high humidity created by cool streamsand cascades. The exotic tropical trees provide protection for theflourishing display of ferns and flowering plants.
Japanese Garden
Originally installed around the Japanese Pavilion at World Expo’88, the garden is recreated here as an enduring gift to the people ofBrisbane from the people of Japan. This primarily evergreen gardenprovides a calm atmosphere that promotes contemplation andmeditation. To achieve the desired effect in Brisbane’ssubtropical climate, a combination of native and exotic plantspecies have been used.
Bonsai House
The Bonsai House was opened in November 1999. It is situated nextto the Japanese Garden and is an inspiring addition to the gardens’plant collections. There are approximately 300 plants, with as manyas 100 on show at any one time, displaying a variety of bonsai styles
and plants suitable for bonsai. Open weekdays 10am-12 noon and1-3pm. Open weekends and public holidays 10am-3pm.
Tropical Display Dome
The Tropical Display Dome features a wide range of shrubs, climbers,epiphytes and small trees from the moist tropics.The humid atmosphere provides a microclimate close to thenatural growing conditions of plants from tropical regions thatcannot normally be grown in Brisbane. Open daily 9am-4pm.
Fern House
The Fern House was opened in July 2002 and has more than80 different species and varieties on display – from ferns that liveon rocks and trees, or even in the water, to the magnificent giantfern, Angiopteris evecta. The walls and shade cloth provide the idealgrowing conditions for these plants – protection from wind, relativelyhigh humidity, some shade and moist soil. Open daily 9am-4pm.
Arid Region Plants and Cacti House
Here the dry regions of Central America and Africa are representedby plants that adapt in similar ways to their respective harshenvironments. Stem-succulent euphorbia and jatropha contrastwith juicy-leaved aloe, kalanchoe, lampranthus and similar forms. Together they combine to simulate the rugged beauty of life in adesert landscape.
Temperate Garden
The Temperate Garden, on the far side of the lagoon, containsan extensive azalea and camellia collection, magnolias, deciduoustrees and other temperate plants. The garden beds explode intoa magnificent festival of colour every spring.
Australian Rainforest
The Australian Rainforest, to the right of the main entrance, isthe oldest section of the gardens and is an excellent example ofa lowland subtropical rainforest. A self-guiding Aboriginal Plant Trailwill help you learn how traditional and contemporary Aboriginalcommunities used Australian rainforest plants for food, medicines,shelter, utensils and tools.
Australian Plant Communities
Plantings in this section of the gardens began in 1984. It occupies 27hectares and features hundreds of Australian native plants arrangedin natural communities and picturesquely landscaped around alarge lake. An area dedicated to displaying a significant selection
of Australian native palms, known as the Palm Grove,is particularly attractive.
Lagoon and Bamboo Grove
Planted late in the 19th Century, the grove provides shade forpicnickers as well as the inhabitants of the lagoon. The lagoon areais teeming with wildlife including eastern water dragons and otherreptiles, a variety of ducks and other birds, fish and insects.
White Arrow Trail
The White Arrow Trail has been prepared to introduce youto some of the highlights and plant varieties found here. At aleisurely pace you should complete the walk in 60 minutes.
From the Information Kiosk look for a white arrow on the ground.Head towards the signpost directing you down to the ExoticRainforest (in botanical terms ‘exotic’ means ‘not native, originallyfrom overseas’). Use the White Arrow Trail map as a guide andkeep a lookout on the ground for more white arrows.
1 Frangipani (Plumeria rubra)
Frangipani flowers can vary from white withyellow centres to the deepest shades of rose
and yellow. The tree’s ability to burst intoleaf and flower, even when not in the ground
has led to the frangipani being regardedas a symbol of immortality.
2Sycamore fig (Ficus sycomorus)
A native of the Middle East, this large,spreading tree with clusters of figson little stalks forming on its trunk, isthe sycamore of the Bible. Zacchaeusclimbed one in Jericho to seeJesus (Luke 19:1).
Cross the bridge and walk to your right to find:
3Tower tree (Schizolobium parahyba)
Reputed to be the fastest growing andtallest tree in these gardens, it is also knownas the yellow jacaranda or mexican fern tree.Its leaves resemble fern fronds and it isdeciduous for a short period in spring.
4Roxburgh fig (Ficus auriculata)
This strikingly attractive fig tree has very largeleaves and produces pear-shaped fruit in
dense clusters all the way down its trunk andalong older branches. It is cultivated for its
ornamental appeal.
5Cigar box cedar (Cedrela odorata)
Although not a true cedar, the timber fromthis tree has a similar colour, grain, aromaand resistance to pests. It is used in archerybows, furniture and cigar boxes (said toimpart flavour to cigars).
6Hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii)
This conifer mainly grows naturally in rainforests.One variety of this tree occurs in New South Walesand Queensland, while another grows in NewGuinea. It is a valued softwood timber tree withdistinctive golden-brown bark and narrow leavesthat cluster along horizontal branches.
7Trumpet tree (Tabebuia and Handroanthusspecies)
Trumpet trees make excellent feature treesand some species are regarded as the most
outstanding flowering trees in the world.Covered with large heads of pink or yellowtrumpet flowers at different times of the year,nine spectacular species grace these gardens.
The bridge over the pond, on your left, straddles the main watersupply pipe for Brisbane’s northern suburbs. The water in thispond is recycled (by pumps) to the creeks and waterfalls above.As you cross ‘the dragon bridge’, look over to the pond belowand see how many eastern water dragons you can spot.
8Floss silk tree (Chorisia speciosa)
The large spikes on the trunk of this tree areusually the feature that attracts the most attention.
However, in spring and autumn, the tree produceslarge heads of bright pink five-petalled flowerswith white and brownish markings.
You can now proceed directly to the Tropical Display Dome to seeplants of the moist tropics but a worthwhile diversion is to takethe path down to the right that leads to the Japanese Garden.
You will experience an added sense of peace and tranquility ifyou take the time to stroll through this appealing example of themountain-pond-stream style of Japanese landscape architecture.
9 Lobster claw (Heliconia species)
Grown for their stately banana-like habit(sometimes six metres tall), handsome foliage
and superb waxy flowers, heliconias grow wellin greenhouses, moist semi-shaded tropical and
subtropical gardens.
Leaving the Tropical Display Dome you now enterthe desert-like landscape of the Arid Region Plants.Keep following the white arrows.
10 Pony tail plants (Nolina recurvata)
Donated to these gardens, these 50 year oldplants are strikingly strange. They are nativeto Mexico and show many adaptations forfrost-free desert and semi-desert regions– swollen trunks with thick corky bark andreduced fibrous leaves.
11 Euphorbia species
Euphorbia species have a milky whitesap in common that is toxic in mostcases. Their form and habit, however,range from crumpled, spiky, cactus-likesucculents, to the fairy white bracts
of ‘snowflake’ and the large bright redbracts of poinsettia.
12Baobab tree (Adansonia digitata)
Related to the baobabs in WesternAustralia, this African species flowered forthe first time in these gardens in February1995. Its trunk will develop a ‘swollen urn’shape and, when leafless, the tree lookslike it is growing upside down.
Your final stop is the Cacti and Bromeliad House.Here you will see simulated forest and desert-likeareas of tropical and subtropical America and Africaand the fascinating plants found in them.
You can now either visit the cafe or exit to the carpark.If time permits stroll back to the Information Kioskvia the Fragrant Plants and Herb Garden.
You can now either visit the cafe or exit to the car park. If timepermits stroll back to the Information Centre via the Fragrant Plantsand Herb Garden.
Aboriginal Plant Trail
DANGER! Do not eat any plants. This information on traditional use of plants for food and medicine is informative only, and NOT recommended.
This self-guiding trail has been prepared to introduce you tosome of the plants found in the gardens that were used byAboriginal communities.
Aboriginal people have used native plants for medicine, shelter,materials and food for tens-of-thousands of years reflecting detailedknowledge of the environment. Many plants require complexand elaborate processing and this knowledge has been passeddown through the generations in legends, stories and practicaldemonstrations. Today there is a growing interest in traditionalAboriginal cultures, bush foods and medicines.
The Aboriginal Plant Trail takes you around the oldest sectionof the gardens, the Australian Rainforest, which was plantedin 1974. There are many interpretive signs beside the path with
more than one specimen of the plants highlighted in this brochure.The walk will take you about 30 minutes at an easy pace.
1 King orchid (Dendrobium speciosum)
The swollen stems are beaten to a pulp tobreak up the fibre before cooking on hotstones. The starch can then be sucked out.The starch can also be used to fix paints.
2 Foam bark (Jagera pseudorhus)
The inner bark contains saponins, whichcan be used to poison fresh waterand marine fish. The saponins stop theuptake of oxygen over their gills but leavetheir flesh edible.
3 Cluster fig (Ficus racemosa)
Ripe cluster figs are edible, but the taste canvary from floury to sweet. Figs are unusual fruits
because their flowers are internal and they arepollinated by wasps. Little native wasps can
often be found inside these figs. Aboriginal peoplewould hollow out the soft trunks of cluster figs tomake canoes. They would also scrape offthe inner bark and boil it in water to produce
a liquid to treat diarrhoea.
Pause for a moment on the bridge and look down the creek.Here you can see the layers of vegetation typical of an Australiansubtropical rainforest — ferns on the forest floor and an understoreyof palms leading up to a canopy of tall trees.
4 Pepper vine (Piper novaehollandiae)
The red fruits are edible and contain peppery seeds.The leaves were chewed to relieve sore gums.Colonial doctors used an extract to treat mucousdischarges.
5 Candle nut tree (Aleurites moluccana)
The large, hard-shelled seeds are poisonous whenraw, but taste like macadamia nuts after being
roasted. The nuts can be used as a fuel source asthey contain sufficient oil to burn with a smoky flame,hence the name. Some Aboriginal communities usedthe tree sap and fruit skins to cure fungal infectionson the skin. The dead tree was also valued as asource of edible grubs.
6 Brown pine (Podocarpus elatus)
The 'fruit' comes in two sections and it is the purpleblackfleshy stalk that can be eaten. It is high invitamin C and has a sweet plum-like taste. It canbe made into jams, jellies, tarts and condimentsand is often served in bush tucker restaurants.
7 Small-leaved lilly pilly (Syzygium luehmannii)
A wide range of lilly pilly species provide ediblefruits. They are eaten raw when ripe and the tastevaries from sweet to sour-sharp. Some types wereused for medicinal purposes including treatmentof flu, colds, diarrhoea, aching ears, open woundsswelling stomach pains and sore throats.
8 Spear tree (Macaranga tanarius)
Bark from this fast-growing tree provides fibrefor making nets and the light wood in the
trunks was used by Aboriginal people formaking fishing spears. The large leaves canbe wrapped around food for cooking in a fire.
9 Cabbage palm (Livistona australis)
String bags, baskets, fishing nets and lines canbe made from the fibre in young leaves. The leavescan also be used for roofing on shelters and earlypioneers made them into hats. The terminal budcan be cooked as ‘palm cabbage’, but harvestingthis delicacy kills the tree.
10 Mat-rush (Lomandra longifolia)
The soft white bases of the new shoots arepleasant to eat and taste like raw green peas.The tough strap-like leaves can be woven intomats, baskets or used as tight-fitting bands.By beating and soaking the leaves, fibre canbe extracted to make string for net bags.
11 Piccabeen (Archontophoenix cunninghamii)
The large brown leaf sheaths make excellent‘pikkis’ or carrying vessels for food, water or honey.
The palm heart (the growing bud at the top of thetree) can be boiled or roasted in the ashes of a fire,but this results in the death of the tree.
12 Black bean (Castanospermum australe)
The chestnut-like seeds are very poisonouswhen raw, but are made edible by a complicated
process of pounding, roasting and soaking inrunning water for long periods. The resulting
meal tastes like rice and was a staple foodsource for Aboriginal people, who called it ‘mai’.
To see more native plant species you can explore the Australian Plant Communities. This section was started in 1984 and covers27 hectares and contains tropical and subtropical rainforests, wetlands, open eucalypt forest and heathland as found in theeastern part of Australia.