Florilegium plants
Florilegium plants
A gathering of flowers: the Florilegium collection
Finely detailed botanical artworks reveal the range of plants introduced to Sydney’s gardens over the past 200 years
Florilegium plants
Blue ginger
Blue ginger was one of many hundreds of exotic plants William Macarthur grew at the family estate at Camden Park, where he established a nursery
Florilegium plants
Bunya pine
Owners of large 19th-century estates often planted tall trees around the house or homestead so they could orient themselves from the surrounding area
Florilegium plants
Camellia japonica 'Cleopatra'
Vaucluse House has a significant collection of historic camellia cultivars, some of them dating back to the mid-1800s
Florilegium plants
Firewheel tree
A Queensland firewheel tree is one of the more prominent surviving elements of the garden Rose Seidler established around the modernist, Bauhaus-influenced house designed for her by her architect son, Harry, and completed in 1950
Florilegium plants
Florilegium: plant stories from our gardens
Native plants and exotic species from abroad have shaped Sydney’s gardens from the earliest days of the colony. Through the tales of their discovery, collection and exchange, and the horticultural trends that drove their popularity, our gardens reveal captivating stories spanning more than 200 years
Florilegium plants
Forest red gum
The eucalypt bushland that fringed Colonial Secretary Alexander Macleay’s 54-acre (almost 22-hectare) grant at Elizabeth Bay appealed to the early 19th-century taste for the artfully rustic style known as the ‘picturesque’
Florilegium plants
Hoop pine
Members of the Araucaria genus are some of the most important trees used in early colonial gardens
Florilegium plants
Norfolk Island pine
By the 1860s the informal parkland surrounding Vaucluse House was studded with several Norfolk Island pines