FTG Botanicals
Beez Neez now Chy Whella
Big Bear and Pepe Millard
Fri 19 Jun 2015 22:47
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Flora Tropica Gardens, Savusavu
   We were met at the gate by a giant of
a man, paid our fees and stepped into the FTG – the Flora Tropica Gardens and
found ourselves beside a pond. I decided my first
real Fijian hug should be with Enoch, not a name that any of us would have possibly
guessed. Maj took the role as tour
guide and off we went. FTG is an officially accredited botanical garden by the
BGCI – The Botanical Gardens Conservation International. The BGCI is a plant
conservation charity based in Kew. It is a membership organisation working with
eight hundred botanical gardens in one hundred and eighteen countries, whose
combined work forms the world’s largest plant conservation network.
   Up the
stairs, reading labels as we went Maj filling
in important information, medicinal properties, uses and where they came from.
Great shapes.
   Unusual – seed pods, young shoots and leaves that look nibbled but totally
natural.
  On the higher level, we were straight
into what would prove to be an amazing collection of
palms
The garden is mostly a collection of
palms from around the world as well as other fruiting and ornamental plants. The
garden opened in 1998 and apart from the existing large raintrees – albizia
saman, other plants are no more than fifteen years old. About half of the
Fijian palm species are listed as threatened or endangered in their habit, this
has been mostly due to clearing for mahogany plantations.
Endangered – Critically Endangered.
Categories are decided by surveys carried out by botanists and institutions
involved in the world flora. The ICUN or International Union for Conservation of
Nature is the world’s oldest and largest global environmental network. It is a
union with more than a thousand government and NGO member organisations and
almost eleven thousand volunteer scientists in more than one hundred and sixty
countries. The Union’s headquarters are in Switzerland and was founded in
1948.
   Bear liked the chaps that have their
own tripods, I liked the snake
skin named after a slitherer, both live in their native Vanuatu. We all
loved the patterns left by Mother Nature as old
‘leaves’ dry, leaving their skeletons behind.
 At the top of the highest level was a
really pale, bluish palm named Bismark. What a
looker.
  Up here we met the guard cat mid scratch, unaware that his left ear was being
munched by a mossie.
   Lovely
views from up here.
   Diamond Joey, Foxy
Lady and Nesi of
Fiji
 The critically endangered Blessed Palm of north west Madagascar
   The Stilt
Palm of the Seychelles. The rare and endangered Aneityum palm of Vanuatu. The Bottle
Palm – extinct in the wild. There was one called the hurricane palm that
is threatened, one that was good for headaches and VD, one that made excellent
walking canes, several that made good furniture and one that made the best
thatched roofs.............
 ...........even one called Teddy Bear.
ALL IN ALL AN INCREDIBLE
COLLECTION OF RARE PALMS
BRILLIANTLY LAID OUT FIVE ACRE
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