The colonial history of botanical gardens encouraged pride in indigenous flora and culture.
Melburnians admire the first primrose to arrive in the colony, transported by a Wardian case, in Edward Hopley’s A Primrose from England, circa 1855.
Bendigo Art Gallery, Gift of Mr and Mrs Leonard Lansell 1964.
A wood and glass case invented in the early 19th-century transformed the movement of plants around the world. In Melbourne, several thousand people greeted a primrose on its arrival from England.
If a plant grows and no botanist is around to classify it…
Shutterstock/blackzheep
The current debate led by Paul Keating about the Master Plan for Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens reminds us how patchy and inconsistent our democracy is in regard to the way we make our cities. The Royal…