Tropical Rainforest Greenhouse
1999
A great glass and steel dome rises above the lawns of the botanical garden like a cut gemstone, and inside it a slice of tropical rainforest grows in the middle of Taichung. Palms, figs and giant leaved aroids climb toward the roof, orchids and bromeliads cling to the trunks, and a waterfall drops into a pool where fish from the Amazon, including huge arapaima, drift beneath a viewing window. The greenhouse is the centrepiece of the museum's four and a half hectare botanical garden, which opened in 1999, and it houses several hundred plant species from the rainforests of Asia, Africa and the Americas.
Take the path that spirals up around the inside of the dome. At ground level you are in the understorey, among ferns and the seedlings that wait for light; halfway up you pass through the canopy where most of the flowers and fruit are found; near the top you look down on the whole forest and out through the glass to the city. Look for the strangler fig, the carnivorous pitcher plants, the cacao and coffee trees, and the misting systems that keep the air heavy and warm. Signs explain how rainforests recycle their nutrients and why so much of the world's biodiversity lives in them.
The garden outside the dome is arranged by Taiwan's own habitats, with sections for the lowlands of north, centre and south, the monsoon forest, coastal forest, the plants of Orchid Island and a collection of cycads. The greenhouse is a separate site from the main museum, a short walk along Xitun Road, and it needs its own admission. A memorable detail is the arapaima in the pool, one of the largest freshwater fish on Earth, which can be seen nose to nose through the underwater window.
Did You Know? The pool beneath the waterfall holds arapaima from the Amazon, fish that can grow longer than a person and must surface to breathe air.
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