Bizitou: A botanical garden in Chiayi's backstreets

However, Bizitou doesn’t get nearly as many visitors, partly because it’s a little hard to find. It’s just west of the main railway line, less than 10 minutes drive north of the city’s train station. Keep your eyes open for bilingual signs.

It’s a good place to go to learn about Taiwan’s plants and trees, and to enjoy a breath of nature without having to leave the city. Because there aren’t many humans, it’s also a good spot for watching birds.

The botanical garden, which covers 4.6 hectares, has been open to the public since 2005. The site’s history is far longer – something you’d likely deduce from the height (20 meters or more) and obvious maturity of many of the trees.

It was established in 1908 as a nursery specializing in cultivating gum trees. Later, it served as a general tree nursery, and the laboratory here stores seeds from 300 species of fruit trees. In 2001, the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute (TFRI) began planning its conversion into a botanical garden.

TFRI (http://www.tfri.gov.tw) is a unit of the Forestry Bureau, which itself is part of the central government’s Council of Agriculture. TFRI began life in the early days of the Japanese occupation as the Regenerative Products Bureau of the Japanese Governor General’s Office.

Bizitou Botanical Garden is divided into eight sections: Green Resources, City Compound Storied Forest Landscape, Bamboo Plants, Lawn Plants, Rattan Plants, Shrub Plants, Fragrant Flowers, and the Nursery Garden.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much in the way of English-language information at the garden. However, many of the plants bear labels with Chinese and scientific (Latin) names, so you may want to bring a field guide that can help you match scientific names like Spathnodea campanulata with the relevant common English appellations (in this case, African Tulip Tree, or Flame of the Forest).

Different parts of the garden are dominated by different tree species. In one patch there’s a cluster of Araucaria cunninghamii. This evergreen conifer is usually called the Moreton Bay Pine, after a bay near the Australian city of Brisbane.

Elsewhere there are Peltophorum inerme (Yellow Poinciana) and Reevesia formosana (臺灣梭羅樹).

The former is dioecious, meaning some specimens are ‘male’ while others are ‘female’ (many trees and plants have separate male and female reproductive units on the same organism). The latter species, which has delicate white flowers, doesn’t have a common English name because it is endemic to Taiwan. It’s somewhat rare, but can also be seen in Taipei Botanical Garden (台北植物園) and in the hillier parts of the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春半島).

There are several sturdy specimens of Euphorbia neriifolia. Better known to English-speakers as the Indian Spurge Tree, this succulent, cactus-like shrub was used as a folk medicine in the Taiwan of yore, cancer being one the ailments it was thought to alleviate. These days, scientists are more interested in its potential as a bio-fuel crop.

Adenanthera microsperma, a perennial, appears not to have an English name, even though it’s common in Asia and the islands in the Indian ocean. In Southeast Asia, it’s often planted as a shade tree, to cool either roadsides or coffee. This species, notable for its heart-shaped red beans, can also be seen in Hueisun Forest Station (惠蓀林場) in Nantou County (南投縣).

Chiayi City may be one of Taiwan’s most-densely populated local government areas, but even here, quite close to the downtown, you can find a patch of lush nature. Just be prepared for mosquitoes!

Subscribe to The China Post and save 25%. Click here

SharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Terms

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos
 Respond to this email