We visited the fantastic University of California Botanical Garden, tucked into a fold of the forested hills above the UC Berkeley campus, in Strawberry Canyon. What a delight to wander through so many different types of plant environments, from humid tropical greenhouses to arid deserts and dense hardwood forests. We lingered by a pond in a Japanese-style garden, where big darner dragonflies (Anax sp.) hawked above the lily pads. One female landed to lay her eggs in the pond. We met the “Creeping Devil Cactus,” which grows at one end and withers at the other, seeming to crawl slowly across the ground over months and years. And we gawked at many carnivorous plants and queer “pebble plants” from Namibia, which look like stones. The UC Botanical Garden also has a working beehive, which you can look into. It was an educational and relaxing afternoon.
Steven E. F. Brown 