Melbourne's Royal Botanic Gardens are located on the south bank of the Yarra River near the city centre. The 38 hectares of grounds are home to some 10,000 plant species representing both native Australian and world flora. The Royal Botanic Gardens are widely regarded as the best in Australia and one of the finest in the world. The gardens' long-standing commitment to breeding species imported to the continent is also of great importance.
45 kilometres south-west of Melbourne in the suburb of Cranbourne is a branch of the Royal Botanic Gardens, which covers 363 hectares and grows predominantly native plants in a special section of the Australian Garden, opened in 2006 and which has already won a number of botanical awards.
In Melbourne itself, the botanical gardens are located near a group of parks known as Leisure Parks. It includes King's Domain, Alexandra Gardens and Queen Victoria Gardens.
The history of the Queen's Botanic Gardens dates back to the mid-19th century, when it was decided to establish a botanical collection on the swampy banks of the Yarra River shortly after the founding of Melbourne. At first the gardens were just a herbarium, but in 1873 the new director William Guilfoyle changed the look of the garden, turning it into a picturesque place to walk and planting tropical and temperate plants.
Today, the botanical garden features several displays corresponding to geographical areas of the earth: the Australian Forest, California Garden, New Zealand Collection, South China Gardens, and others. There are eucalyptus, a variety of cacti and succulents, roses, camellias, ferns, oaks, and many other representatives of the world's flora.
One of the garden's most famous trees is the so-called Secession Tree, a 300-year-old riverine eucalyptus under which the state of Victoria was once declared an independent colony. The tree was mutilated by vandals in August 2010 and it is still unknown whether it will recover.
Since its earliest days, the Royal Botanic Gardens has been dedicated to the work of plant research and identification through the establishment of the National Herbarium of Victoria. Today the Herbarium contains approximately 1.2 million specimens of dried plants, as well as an extensive collection of books, magazines and videos on botanical subjects. And more recently, the Australian Urban Ecology Research Centre was established here to monitor plants growing in urban ecosystems.
