The Colac Botanic Gardens is a regional

botanical garden A botanical garden or botanic gardenThe terms ''botanic'' and ''botanical'' and ''garden'' or ''gardens'' are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word ''botanic'' is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens, an ...

, located at the corner of Fyans and Gellibrand streets, on the shores of Lake Colac in

Colac, Victoria Colac is a small city in the Western District of Victoria, Australia, approximately 150 kilometres south-west of Melbourne on the southern shore of Lake Colac. History For thousands of years clans of the Gulidjan people occupied the region ...

, Australia. Land was allocated in 1865, with the garden being established in 1868 by Daniel Bunce, and later remodelled in 1910 by Melbourne Botanical Gardens director

William Guilfoyle William Robert Guilfoyle (8 December 1840 – 25 June 1912) was an English landscape gardener and botanist in Victoria, Australia, acknowledged as the architect of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne and was responsible for the design of man ...

. The Colac Botanic Gardens covers fifteen

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100- metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is ...

s, and contains over a thousand specimens (more than any other provincial garden in Victoria). The garden hosts variations of trees such as bunya bunya pine (''

Araucaria bidwillii ''Araucaria bidwillii'', commonly known as the bunya pine and sometimes referred to as the false monkey puzzle tree, is a large evergreen coniferous tree in the plant family Araucariaceae. It is found naturally in south-east Queensland Austral ...

''), Black Matipo ('' Pittosporum tenuifolium''), Firewheel Tree (''

Stenocarpus sinuatus ''Stenocarpus sinuatus'', known as the firewheel tree, is an Australian rainforest tree in the family Proteaceae. The range of natural distribution is in various rainforest types from the Nambucca River (30° S) in New South Wales to the A ...

''), Bird Plant (''Crotalaria agatiflora'') and Tecate Cypress (''

Cupressus forbesii ''Cupressus forbesii'', now reclassified by some as ''Hesperocyparis forbesii'', and with the common names Tecate cypress or Forbes' cypress, is a species of cypress native to southwestern North America. Distribution ''Cupressus forbesii'' i ...

''). Several trees in the garden have been placed on the Victorian Significant Tree Register. The gardens are listed on the

Victorian Heritage Register The Victorian Heritage Register (VHR) lists places deemed to be of cultural heritage significance to the State of Victoria, Australia. It has statutory weight under the Heritage Act 2017. The Minister for Planning is the responsible Minister. ...

References

Botanical gardens in Victoria (Australia) Colac, Victoria 1868 establishments in Australia {{Australia-garden-stub