Wandering Wednesday - Arboretum Again

One of our semi-monthly "hikes" with my sister-in-law's family happened last weekend. It was a lovely, cool and mostly foggy day to meet up at the UCSC Arboretum. I love coming here with people who haven't been before, it's so fun to hear the reaction to the weird and wonderful plant collections that they have growing. I've been coming to the arboretum for a long time, and have made a couple posts about it. It's fun to look back and see which pictures I've posted, and what I've said over the years about this wonderful place.
  

The above is a protea from the South African collection. Looks like feathers, doesn't it?
 

This was so soft to the touch, even though hit totally looks like a spider. I love those leaf shapes.

This is a Banksia from the Australian collection. As you can see the bees were pretty excited about the pollen situation.

They are tremendously weird looking!

This nearly neon orange cut through the gloom of the day. I like how the color is also in the stem and leaves too.

Those leaves remind me of Tule Reeds! And the flower/fruit is right on the branch.

This is what the Banksia flower looks like after it's done being all pretty. From far away it looks like a fluffed-up owl sitting on a branch.

The open seed pods look like little mouths don't they? I think there should definitely be an Australian kid's show with these talking.

Every time I see the Australian collection, it makes me really want to go visit Australia and see these out in the wild.

The edge of the arboretum is surround by a redwood "forest". I'm guessing that it's 3rd or 4th growth as it is clearly planted all in neat rows. So, not a forest, but more of a wind break. But still, it's fun to see a bit of home right next to all the strange Australian plants.

We had fun in the faux forest.

I like this color combination.

This is a plant called a wattle, which makes me think of "wattle and daub" which is not this.

One last neon glowing banksia "fruiting cone".

The arboretum is definitely not a place to run around and crash into plants.

I like the demonstration grow domes they still have, they've been here since the 70's and updated over the years. It has fans in the top to take the hot air out. They are part of a program to figure out how to grow our plants even when the climate conditions change drastically. Glad someone is working on figuring out that issue.