Botany Photo of the Day

The last couple early evenings have been difficult for photography here in sunny Vancouver - bright sun and blue skies tend to produce photographs that are high in contrast. The end result is that the shadows in the photograph tend to be too dark (like in this photograph) and the brights and whites are oversaturated (which you can notice an example of in the plinth). Still, I've photographed much worse than this, and I find the photograph pleasing enough to inspire me to try again when the light is better, so there you go. Maybe if I improve upon it, I'll post a follow-up someday.

Anyway, this is the Physic Garden at UBC. It's one of the smaller gardens, built around the theme of medieval and Renaissance European medicinals. Along the European theme, it is also the most formal garden with its brick-lined paths, yew hedge, small beds, and physical structure centrepiece (in this case, the plinth and sundial).

Although there are a number of display labels and a few signs, this garden is a candidate for even more interpretation - the plants span the history of Western medicine prior to the 20th century, and you can only imagine how much was written about them (both correct and incorrect). For example, one of the tenets previously believed by practitioners of medicine was the “Doctrine of Signatures” - that the physical appearance of the plant was a hint as to its utility for healing people.

As a slight aside, if you're in the Vancouver area, it's an ideal time to visit the garden - the Asian Garden has highlights of Himalayan blue poppies here and there along with masses of 20 metre high climbing Clematis on its conifers (which I've been trying unsuccessfully to photograph!), the Alpine Garden easily has hundreds of different kinds of flowers in bloom and the Food Garden is just starting to get going with this year's plantings.

As incentive to visit the garden and to tie in with this particular photo of the day, I'm going to hold a small contest. The prize: I'll send you a “Seaweeds” poster from Celebrate Biodiversity. The contest: be the first person to send me an email with the answer to the following question: “What is the subtle joke on the sundial in the Physic Garden?” A hint: you'll need to be familiar with the University of British Columbia. A request: Please don't enter the contest if you already know the answer to the question.

As a final note, if you are a local resident who appreciates the garden and the Photo of the Day, I'd like to ask you to plan to set aside a few minutes of your day tomorrow - I'm going to make a special request with tomorrow's entry that should only take a few minutes of your time, but could potentially mean a lot to the garden.