Camperdown botanical gardens

This is the Camperdown Botanic gardens, one of many from the colonial era. Castlemaine was another visited in an earlier post. This garden is unusual in that it is on top of a dormant volcanic cone, Mt Leura. The soil is of course excellent for the purpose, and the garden is in an area noted for being damp. The tree above in a pine, whose name escapes me, but it is situated outside the fence, and pines not being a native species, the garden not being for many native species, one can only speculate what happened.

The particular pine is in flower, the flowers are quite large-the size of a tea cup, and stand up bright and cheerfully on a dull day.
Pine bark has such texture and sharp flakiness it is a pleassure to behold.
This is Mount Elephant, as viewed from the top of the mount. Its nameis suggestive of a resting elephant. the mount is about 40km away to the north, and is one of about 400 cones or various other volcanic features in Victoria.

This is a lake formed in a volcanic coned which appears to have slumped, Lake Bullen Merri. The area around Camperdown is very like a lake district, with some large lakes-Corangamite for instance-which are sometimes dangerous in changing weather.
My old favourite, the weeping elm, Ulmus glabra, Camperdownii, in its namesake. This one is quite young, but already is characteristically deformed.
The sign commemorating the planting of the tree by the Governor of the time.
Cabbage tree, Cordyline australis. These trees were once used as the material for making hats, cabbage tree hats, used in colonial times to give shelter from the sun to the fair English complexions of the squatting class.
The tree itself. Mt Elephant is barely visible in the background to the left of the pine. This garden is somewhat less well maintained and is a lot smaller than Castlemaine, but it has a sort of raffishness about it. The views are spectacular, the magpies are dicey. One spent a lot of energy eyeing me off, and swooped several times, just missing the statue of Robbie Burns to get at me. Seems to be that time of the year.