Australia - South Australia - Adelaide Botanic Garden

Adelaide Botanic Garden, South Australia.

Beautiful, vibrant, alive and tranquil.

Sent by Sharyn from Adelaide, Australia.

The Adelaide Botanic Garden is a 51-hectare (130-acre) public garden at the north-east corner of the Adelaide city centre, in the Adelaide Park Lands. It lies on North Terrace (between Lot Fourteen, the site of the old Royal Adelaide Hospital, and the National Wine Centre) and behind it the Botanic Park (adjacent to the Adelaide Zoo). Work was begun on the site in 1855, with its official opening to the public on 4 October 1857.

The Adelaide Botanic Garden and adjacent State Herbarium of South Australia, together with the Wittunga Botanic Garden and Mount Lofty Botanic Garden, comprise the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium of South Australia, administered by the Board of the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium, a state government statutory authority.

From the first official survey carried out for the map of Adelaide, Colonel William Light intended for the planned city to have a "botanical garden". To this end, he designated a naturally occurring ait that had formed in the course of the River Torrens, in what is now the West Parklands. However attempts to establish a garden were abandoned owing to frequent flooding of the area. After a second attempt had failed, the northern bank of the Torrens, opposite the present location of the Adelaide Zoo, was considered, and it was here in 1839 that John Bailey (1800-1864), an experienced gardener and Colonial Botanist, made a third attempt, but no funding was offered. The South Australian Agricultural and Horticultural Society (formed 1842) and other groups continued to press for the creation of a public garden. The public were aware of the economic and scientific benefits of such a garden, already seen elsewhere in the British Empire. In 1854 the present site was recommended to the government by the Society and George William Francis (who had begun appealing to the Governor Sir Henry Young soon after his arrival in 1849 to establish the garden), and Francis was appointed superintendent of the garden in 1855 (read more).

Australia - South Australia

The flag, Sturt's Desert Pea and Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat are emblems of the State of South Australia. Left, top to bottom : Looking over Adelaide, the capital city, from North Adelaide to the Mt Lofty Ranges; a vineyard in the famed Barossa Valley.

Sent by Terry, a postcrosser from Adelaide, Australia.

South Australia (abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent. With a total land area of 983,482 square kilometres (379,725 sq mi), it is the fourth largest of Australia's states and territories.

South Australia shares borders with all of the other mainland states, and with the Northern Territory; it is bordered to the west by Western Australia, to the north by the Northern Territory, to the north-east by Queensland, to the east by New South Wales, to the south-east by Victoria, and to the south by the Great Australian Bight and the Indian Ocean. With over 1.6 million people, the state comprises less than 8% of the Australian population and ranks fifth in population among the states and territories. The majority of its people reside in the state capital, Adelaide, with most of the remainder settled in fertile areas along the south-eastern coast and River Murray. The state's origins are unique in Australia as a freely settled, planned British province, rather than as a convict settlement. Official settlement began on 28 December 1836, when the colony was proclaimed at The Old Gum Tree by Governor John Hindmarsh.

The first settlement to be established was Kingscote, Kangaroo Island, on 26 July 1836, five months before Adelaide was founded. The guiding principle behind settlement was that of systematic colonisation, a theory espoused by Edward Gibbon Wakefield that was later employed by the New Zealand Company. The aim was to establish the province as a centre of civilisation for free immigrants, promising civil liberties and religious tolerance. Although its history is marked by economic hardship, South Australia has remained politically innovative and culturally vibrant. Today, the state is known as a state of festivals and of fine wine. The state's economy centres on the agricultural, manufacturing and mining industries and has an increasingly significant finance sector as well.

South Australia's Governor is Kevin Scarce and its Premier is Jay Weatherill of the Australian Labor Party. (Source)