Xstrata Treetop Walkway at Kew Gardens with Tony Kirkham
Star of A Year at Kew, Tony Kirkham takes you up to the tree canopy as we join him on Kew Gardens’ amazing treetop walkway. The Rhizotron & Xstrata Treetop Walkway stands in the Arboretum, between the Temperate House and the Lake. A path lined with examples of different timbers leads visitors below ground to the Rhizotron. Inside, an installation explains the relationships that exist between tree roots, the soil and organisms such as nematodes, beetles, woodlice and bacteria. On the floor is a mosaic inspired by the mutually beneficial relationships that exist between many plant roots and fungi. The 18-metre high, 200-metre walkway at Kew Gardens guides visitors around the crowns of lime, sweet chestnut and oak trees. Supported by rusted steel columns that blend in with the natural environment, it provides opportunities for inspecting birds, insects, lichen and fungi at close quarters, as well as seeing blossom emerging and seed pods bursting open. Things to look out for At the entrance to the Rhizotron and Xstrata Treetop Walkway are sculptures carved from tree trunks. The carvings illustrate microscopic elements of trees, and help explain how trees grow. Visitors learn, for example, that leaves have breathing pores shaped like lips and that tubes called phloem pump sap from leaves to fruits and roots. Kids Mission * Can you find out how much carbon a 70-year-old tree releases to the environment when it dies? * How much water does a large broad-leafed tree need to drink …
Video Rating: 4 / 5
Titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum) at Kew Gardens www.kew.org One of the most spectacular plants to be found in the wet tropics zone of Kew Gardens’ Princess of Wales Conservatory is the titan arum. With its huge flowering structure (inflorescence) rising over 2.5m above the ground and its single immense leaf, it certainly is a giant among plants, as its name suggests. Coupled with its characteristic foul stench, and the rarity of flowerings, this plant has always hit the headlines.
Video Rating: 5 / 5
What’s wrong with the lift, which has never worked, even when it was new in 2008?
Transformers, robots in disguise.
Joseph is the best.
fucking plants
hi’how can I buy this plant.can you please help me.thanks
What does it look like after it blooms? Is it limp and dead or does it just close up?
Oh yeh, this is the flower that smells like rotting flesh!….Best to hold your nose when seeing this in person!
is that that thing that flowers only every 50 years?
A day at Kew or Wakehurst is a pleasure indeed!
Amazing, Kew seems to amaze me everyday, and I have never visited :S
Hopefully I can come down and see Kew, Wakehurst, London Zoo & The Natural History Museum.
(Although Ive already seen ZSL London 7 the Natural History Museum)