Evolution Garden

This area is designed as an education trail to show how plants have evolved over millions of years.

 

Our focal point is a fossilised stump of one of the giant club mosses which flourished some 310 million years ago, in the Carboniferous period and which contributed – eventually – to the Coal Measures.

Blocks of coal have been added to show what such plants finally became. The fossil was found in the Chapeltown area by a party of railway navvies in 1875. In the early 1980s it was moved from High Hazels Park to the Botanical Gardens.

There is a remarkable collection of conifers including Metasequoia glyptostraboides (Dawn Redwood), Sequoiadendron giganteum (Giant Redwood), Sequoia sempervirens (Coast Redwood) and Pseudolarix amabilis (Golden Larch).

A new Education Trail with information boards was installed in September 2025. Each board describes a major development in the plant kingdom. 

  • Fossil stump of ancient lycopod Lepidodendron

    (310 million years old) - November 2019

  • Blocks of coal - November 2019

  • Fern beds - August 2024

  • Ginkgo biloba - July 2015

  • Sequoiadendron giganteum (Giant Redwood) - February 2014

  • Araucaria araucana (Monkey Puzzle) -December 2021

  • Wollemia nobilis (Wollemi Pine) December 2021

  • Magnolia ‘Leonard Messel’ - April 2024

  • Ranunculus ‘Brazen Hussy’ Eudicot Bed 1 - April 2024

  • Tulipa ‘Ballerina’ Monocot Bed 1 - April 2024