The Royal Botanic Garden of Tasmania is spread over 14 hectares near the centre of Hobart. Established in 1818 on the east bank of the Derwent River, this botanic garden is the second oldest in Australia. Some of its collections of of plants and trees date back to the 19th century. There is also a unique collection of Tasmania's endangered plants. Its most interesting are the Royal Lomatium and the world's only Subantarctic Plant Pavilion. This pavilion contains plants from the high southern latitudes, for which special climatic conditions have been created to replicate their natural habitat of dank, dense fog. Most of these plants from Macquarie Island. And in total, the botanical garden has about 6,500 plants.
During a walk amongst all this floral diversity you can the largest collection of conifers in the southern hemisphere, the quiet Japanese Garden, an impressive greenhouse with a fountain, a garden of spicy plants that drive you crazy with their unique odour and the Pete's Plot vegetable garden, created by renowned Tasmanian horticulturist Pete Cundell. The Lily Pond, created in the 1840s, is one of the garden visitors' favourite spots. Not far from the restaurant and near the restaurant and visitor centre is the romantic Jubilee Arch, surrounded by tall, sprawling trees.
Within the botanical garden grounds are several structures of historical value. Among them are the director's cottage (today it is the office of the Garden administration) and Arthur's Wall, a hollow that can be heated for the purpose of to grow fruit. However, it turns out that fruit trees in Tasmania grow perfectly well without any help from anyone, and this shaft has never been used for its for its intended purpose. At the northern end of the rampart stands another cottage, built in 1845 for the head gardener, which at different years housed the janitor's office, the warden's residence, tea rooms and other rooms. Another brick rampart, Australia's longest convict-built structure, crosses the garden area from north to south. This is the Erdley-Wilmot rampart, which, as legend has it, was built to keep out grasshoppers. In 1878, wrought iron gates were installed in the garden, which became its real decoration.
Long before the arrival of the first Europeans, these lands were inhabited by aboriginal tribes, and traces of their presence are still visible in the botanical garden.
