Botanical Bus Tour 12/21

On the third Friday of the month, the Zoo hosts a free botanical bus tour accompanied and narrated by some of their very knowledgeable horticulturalists and gardeners. The Zoo is an accredited living museum and botanical garden, with over 6,000 different species of plants! They also house rescued rare and endangered plants. With so much at hand, you can see and experience almost any bioclimatic zone you can think of. The Zoo's plants are now being mapped with GPS for even more accuracy.

We began at a huge thorn acacia leaning on the rock kopje and headed down Dog and Cat Canyon. We got a good look at part of the new world collection, which includes succulents, agaves, and cacti. There are mulberry trees across from the arch cages that are used for animal browse. Hunte Amphitheater is surrounded by beautiful coastal redwoods and giant sequoias, and the huge fishtail palm on the right corner of the hornbill exhibit is the tallest on the entire west coast. Fishtails are the only palm with a bipinnate leaf. They have a thirty year life which ends with a seven year flowering cycle. Passing the macadamia nut trees by the porcupines in the canyon, we rounded the corner and started up Bear Canyon.

We passed the huge groupings of ginger that comes into full bloom in August and September and smells phenomenal. Ginger actually shares the same family as bananas. We passed Fern Canyon, newly reopened, in which some of the original plants are over ninety years old. Across from the grizzly cubs is the only true native palm of Hawaii. Most Hawaiian palms are each endemic to a single island. Nearby is a type of large Brachychiton, or bottle tree, which is in the chocolate family. It has really neat, big seed pods that are unmistakable from the ground.

Topping the hill, we passed the beautiful blooming tree aloe with its bright orange cones, which flowers in the winter. There are ten different groups of aloe, and the tree aloe can grow as high as fifty feet! The top of the hill has both banana and dragon fruit plants. Bananas are actually a berry, and there are twenty-two different kinds! The banana plant grows forty leaves before it begins its seven year fruiting stage. After fruiting is over, the plant dies, a new one sprouts, and the cycle begins again. The dragon fruit, also known as the strawberry pear or pitahaya, only blooms at night; the white flowers are huge and beautiful, and I've been fortunate to be able to view them during Zoo Sleepover programs.

We circled behind the meerkats to turn the bus around and were able to see the ice cream bean tree. The pulp has a cotton candy-like consistency and has a sweet, vanilla ice cream taste. The pods can grow up to three feet long! Pulling the pulp away from the seeds in one of the pods, we were able to sample a taste. Not quite ripe, it was a bit more moist than it would usually be, but it was delicious!

Beginning our trip back, we passed the camels who were lounging around a big ficus tree in the center of their enclosure. The camels like to eat all of the ficus leaves that they can reach, and their large hooves compact the soil around the tree. The gardeners have to occasionally add soil around the tree, enabling the camels to reach more leaves. Over time, it looks as if the tree is shrinking! Another bright bloomer is one of the cycads, the sago palm. More closely related to conifers than palms, the cycads' cone starts off bright red, and it's huge. Cycads were dinosaur food, and they make up much of today's coal. A lot of plants went into early bloom this year due to the county's recent wildfires. The ethylene gas in the smoke induces early ripening, increases disease and wounding resistance, and induces flowering in many plants. It has negative effects as well, but fortunately, the San Diego Zoo got just enough indirect smoke to make everything even prettier early. I can't wait for the next tour!