The National Trust's own record puts this tamarind older than the garden around it: 'thought to predate the formation of the Botanic Gardens', which were declared in 1855, with an estimated age nea...
Ancient Trees in the City Botanic Gardens
Brisbane, Australia
Queensland's oldest public garden opened in 1855, and Walter Hill, its first curator, spent the next three decades filling it with plants brought in from across the world; the results are still standing.
Thirteen of the trees we map grow here: the tree that started Australia's whole macadamia industry, a banyan with the finest aerial-root structure of its species in the country, the tallest tree in the gardens at forty-five metres, and a fig said to descend from the tree the Buddha sat under. All are free to walk past, a few minutes apart on paths in the middle of Brisbane's CBD.
Nobody farmed macadamias until someone in Brisbane planted this tree.
Nothing would grow under this tree, and that turned out to be useful.
Moreton Bay figs do not so much grow as advance.
Forty-nine metres around.
An avenue of six Cook Pines was proposed for the ground in front of the old Parliament House in 1868.
Walter Hill delivered his verdict on these two trees in 1872, and it is not a boast.
It was planted in 1869 to be looked at, and the staging still works.
The record for this fig traces it, cutting by cutting, back to the tree the Buddha is said to have sat under.
Photo: Craig Franklin (CC BY-SA 3.0 AU)
The first recorded act of gardening on this ground was a felling.
In bloom
Most grevilleas are shrubs you can see over the top of.
In bloom
The seeds look like chestnuts and will make you seriously ill.
The hoops are real.
Opening times and visitor information: Brisbane City Council.
More parks worth the walk: every park we map. Or explore by city: Prague · Brussels · Porto · Munich · Cambridge · Seville