 Name: Hardenbergia violacea
Common name: Australian Wisteria
Location: Mediterranean Garden
Name: Acca sellowiana
Common name: Feijoe/pineapple guava
Location: Monkey Heights
The feijoe or pineapple guava is an edible fruit from South America. The fruits taste like a cross between strawberries and pineapple. The flowers have white petals with red stamens. The petals are also edible.
Name: Verbena bonariensis
Common name: Purple top vervain
Location: Front entrance beds
The purple top vervain is a decorative flowering plant that comes from South America. It can be grown as an annual, but will also survive the winter in the Southwest. Because it is tall and narrow, it is an excellent ‘filler’ plant for borders as it provides height without taking up much ground area.
 Name: Gigantochloa verticillata
Common name: Giant bamboo
Location: Reptile tropics
This bamboo, from Southeast Asia is the world’s fastest growing plant. It is reported to grow at a rate of up to 80cm each day. The new stems grow only at night, using the energy from the older leafy stems. The stems are hollow and extremely strong and can reach up to 30m high making them useful as a building material and also as lightweight scaffolding poles.
Name: Anigozanthus flavidus
Common name: Kangaroo paw
Location: Mediterranean garden
 The common name ‘kangaroo paw’ refers to the shape of the flowers when just opening. They resemble the front paws of kangaroos. This is an herbaceous evergreen plant from Australia. Although not fully hardy, our specimens survive the winter with only a little frost damage and grow up to flower each summer.
Name: Aloe striatula
Common name: Hardy Aloe
Location: Outside the desert house
 Aloe striatula is probably the hardiest of the Aloes. It has been suggested that they can stand as low as -10C. Ours rarely show any signs of frost even though the winter minimum at Paignton Zoo is around -7C. They produce large amounts of flowers every summer and in a good year will produce viable seeds. |
