Ireland day 0564. Saturday 15 April 2023- Silk Road *

Ireland day 0564. Saturday 15 April 2023- Silk Road

Today’s summary	Our guests went into Dublin for a wedding, and we also went into Dublin for a guided tour round the Botanic Gardens looking at plants that had come to the West along the Silk Road from China
Today’s weather	Bright and sunny first thing. Slowly clouded over with a spot of rain in the evening. Light southerly wind. Appx 11C

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Silk Road tour at Botanic Gardens

Commentary

(Summary blog only. Last full blog was Day 0368).

Our guests had a wedding to go to in Dublin (then are staying overnight in Bray tonight but returning to Malahide tomorrow) and Val had booked us in to a “Silk Road Themed Guided Tour” at the botanic gardens this afternoon. So we all travelled in together around lunchtime then we went our separate ways.

We took the No. 4 bus from Pearse to the Botanic Gardens, where our tour looked at some of the plants introduced to Europe from the Far East, and which had originally been brought here via the Silk Road over the course of the last two millennia. Plants as diverse as paeony, mulberry, gingko and tea all featured – as well as reminder that plants – for example the grape – also travelled the other way down the Silk Road from Europe to the Far East.

It was a highly enjoyable tour, with a knowledgeable guide; altogether a very worthwhile way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Outside the visitor centre at the botanic gardens, waiting for the tour to start	Yellow tree – paeony – the first native of China which we examined today. It was possibly discovered by Marco Polo in his travels to China in the late 1200s

The first palm ever to be planted permanently outside in Ireland. It is the Chusan palm, Trachycarpus fortunei, from central China, and was planted out in 1870. So despite its rather spindly appearance, it is somewhat more than 153 years old	Cercidiphyllum japonicum. An attractive tree from Japan and China which I don’t think I had ever seen before

Vivid pelargonium in the glasshouse	Scented red rhododendron also in the glasshouse. Stunning.

Entrance to the Botanic Garden, at Glasnevin