Botanic Gardens and Parks Authority

Few people - even residents of Western Australia - will ever have the opportunity to see the State's endangered plants growing in their natural habitats.

The 4,600 square metre Conservation Garden is intended to house approximately 400 species in a gently undulating landscape complete with a billabong and swales - depressions which become moist or even swampy following winter rainfall.

Plants are grouped according to region or type of country - such as granite outcrop, sand plain, northern and arid - with additional categories for critically endangered and winter-wet. Some spectacular favourites are represented such as species of Banksia, Darwinia, Dryandra, Eremophila, Grevillea and Verticordia.

If you are familiar with native gardens in Western Australia, some inclusions might surprise you. For example, silky eremophila (Eremophila nivea), a handsome shrub with silvery white foliage and violet flowers, is critically endangered yet it is also commercially available and widely planted in home gardens.

Interpretive signage explains why certain species in the Conservation Garden are threatened and highlights the successes of the Botanic Gardens and Parks Authority in pulling some plants back from the brink of extinction by using techniques ranging from DNA analysis to tissue culture.

The Authority acknowledges the vital contribution made by the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions which collects the seeds of rare and endangered species in the wild and arranges translocation of plants when necessary.

In essence, the Conservation Garden is a visual consolidation of the essential and substantial work the Botanic Gardens and Parks Authority undertakes to preserve Western Australia's precious biodiversity.