A Living Fossil in a Snowglobe

A visit to a botanical garden in Helsinki

Walking through the doors at Helsinki’s Kaisaniemi Botanic Garden felt like entering a snowglobe. Outside, a blanket of snow was turning icey but inside there were tropical forests growing towards glass ceilings. Brooke and I, bundled up for the weather, shed our coats and sweaters and entered the lush glasshouses.

I’ll also mention that although we KNEW we were going to Finland in November, we were entirely unprepared for the weather conditions. Before the trip was over we bought long johns, mittens, and thick, fuzzy onesie for the baby. Who knew?!? Scandinavian countries are cold in the fall and winter!

But back to the Kaisaniemi Botanic Garden – I’ve spent time in a handful of conservatories and something felt different about this one. I looked up and realized that this conservatory was full of grow lights.

In November, when we visited, there were only about seven hours of daylight, which I’m imagining isn’t quite enough for many of these plants that are native to more equatorial regions of the planet. They probably don’t need to use these lights during the summer months when there’s close to twenty hours of sun every day.

In a corner of the Desert Room I come face-to-face with a botanical stranger. I had never seen or even heard of the tree tumbo or welwitschia, (Welwitschia mirabilis), which is native to the Namib desert in Namibia and Angola. Unlike the other plants in the conservatory, this one was growing in an enclosed area behind a low wall.

The welwitschia is a living fossil – it’s the only remaining specimen left in its genus, family and order. Scientists believe that this plant evolved around 200 million years ago. Though it’s only currently found in Africa, they’ve found fossils of the plant across South America. A welwitschia can live for thousands of years and yet it only grows two leaves in its lifetime. As the plant grows, the leaves fray into ribbons that wilt at the end. The plant provides habitat for chameleons and the cones, produced seasonally, feed pollinating insects.

These Finnish welwitschia plants aren’t anywhere close to 1,000 years old. They were germinated at the garden in 2017. Initially there were five seedlings but a nearby sign explains that a mouse ate one of them.

---

---

Inside the Waterlily Room, I immediately recognized the Santa Cruz waterlily from BBC’s The Green Planet.

Using some very fancy camera equipment, the documentary series’ cinematographers captured the incredible way that this waterlily unfurls its spiky pads to crowd out competing aquatic plants. And if that’s not compelling enough, David Attenborough’s masterful narration explains it all:

In this glasshouse, the spiky waterlily seemed to be playing nice with the other residents of their pool, perhaps thanks to a watchful eye from the horticultural staff.

The Kaisaniemi Botanic Garden also includes large outdoor gardens which were, obviously, snowed in for the season. I was especially intrigued by a moss garden and a lichen garden which I saw on the map. I’ll have to come back to see those in warmer weather.

How do you get your fill of greenery during this string of cold, gray weeks? Do you spend more time with your houseplants? I’d love to hear from you.

---

And one more thing: This has nothing to do with plants but it brought me so much joy that I wanted to share it. Last week I co-hosted TALK Pittsburgh and got to interview acclaimed stand-up comedian Randy Feltface, who also happens to be a puppet. I could barely keep my composure and wanted to share the silliness with all of you.

---