I visited the beautiful botanical garden in the university town of Leuven in Belgium again.
These porpoises live there in the glass houses together with tropical plants. Cosy in their warm environment.
The outside pond.
They planted for spring and the flowers are out.
Perhaps you remember the lady on the lawn from a previous post?
The wisteria growing against the glass house is already in full bloom.
They seem to have grown freestanding wisteria’s as well in the open and those are still in the early stages of blooming.
They put a statue up of Rembert Dodoens, know as the father of botany. He was a medical doctor who had a keen interest in plants as adjunct to his practice.
In those days medical practice in northern europe was based on Greco Roman and Arab teachings and the medicinal plants prescribed were from the mediteranian. Part of his job as city doctor was to supervise the pharmacists. Because the plants and substances were unknown to the pharmacists and not readily available they tended to use substitutes.
Dodoens made great advances in botany by seeking new plants out himself and describing them. Of the around 1040 plants he described over 600 had never been described before.
He wrote in the local spoken language so that the pharmacists could readily understand and also translated other existing works.
He was the first person to classify plants according to their characteristics, in the way we still do today.
Born under the name Rembert van Joenckema he later took the name he would have had had his family stayed in Friesland. The tradition being to take as surname the name of your father in the genetive. His father was called Dodo in Frisian, which translates to Denys.
Plants carrying his names are called Dodoens.
Some final pictures of the lovely spring garden.
They leave the grass long for spring in a section of the garden so that the flowers may grow.