Flora and the Baron
This is a free 50 minute audio tour at Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne where visitors can learn about first Royal Botanic Gardens Director, Ferdinand von Mueller.
Start from Oak Lawn Gate (formerly Gate F) any time during Gardens opening hours and use your smartphone and headphones to listen in.
Baron Ferdinand von Mueller – eccentric outsider, global scientific powerhouse and the Botanic Gardens’ first director – has a tale to tell.
Banished from his beloved Gardens for the last twenty years of his life in self-imposed exile, he re-enters the Gardens as a ghost, revelling in his scientific legacy and the powerful beauty of the plants around us. But he is also deeply challenged; the environmental havoc produced from his own actions, like introducing blackberries, and the impact of the colonial scientific era leave him saddened and hollow.
He challenges us to not make the same mistake of being caught in a world of power and knowledge, but to widen our gaze and ponder the future that we are in the process of creating. This audio tour features history, humour, warmth and eccentric charm set to a soundtrack evoking past, present and future.