Taichung Botanical Garden Audio Guide

Tropical Rainforest Greenhouse: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Tropical Rainforest Greenhouse

   Welcome to the Tropical Rainforest Greenhouse, known locally as 自然科博館熱帶雨林溫室. It sits in the North District of Taichung, listed on Guanqian Road, within the botanical garden of the National Museum of Natural Science. The garden lies right next to the main museum building, with a road called Xitun Road running between them. This is a rainforest under glass in the middle of a busy city. The museum calls the greenhouse one of the most distinctive landmarks in Taichung, and the botanical garden's own description names it the largest greenhouse in Taiwan. Inside, you walk through an imitation of a tropical lowland rainforest, with storms, waterfalls and the scent of flowers woven together. In the next few minutes we will look at the structure itself, the plants that fill it, and the science that defines what a rainforest really is. Then we will look at how the greenhouse came to exist at all. Stay with me, because the building is every bit as interesting as what grows inside it.

2. 02

   A Glass Giant: The Tropical Rainforest Greenhouse Structure

   Start with the building, because it is a feat of engineering. The greenhouse is made of a suspended steel structure wrapped in a glass curtain wall. It rises 31 meters above ground and reaches 4.5 meters below ground, and it measures 56 meters across. Picture a vast glass drum, part of it set into the earth, holding an entire forest. All that volume exists for one purpose: to let tall trees grow indoors. A rainforest is a vertical world, and a low roof would have ruined the illusion. With this much height, the planting can climb in layers, from the forest floor all the way up to the crowns of giants. That is also why the greenhouse works so well as a landmark. Its exhibition area covers 2,500 square meters, and it is the most recognizable shape in the botanical garden. Next to it stands a giant butterfly model, which the garden counts as the second of its two great landmarks. Look for the pair as you approach, and you will understand why people use them to find their way around.

3. 03

   Climbing Through the Layers of the Tropical Rainforest Greenhouse

   Inside, around 500 kinds of plants grow across the 2,500 square meters of display space. The planting imitates tropical lowland rainforest, and the aim is to show you two things: how diverse rainforest plants are, and how closely they are tied to human life. The best way to appreciate it is to climb. A path leads up to a viewing platform on the eighth floor, and along the way the forest changes around you. You pass towering trees, including kapok, which form the ultra-tall canopy group. You see a rich growth of epiphytes, plants that live up on other plants rather than in the soil. And you see a variety of groundcover plants down below. Each level is a different habitat, so the walk is really a lesson in how a rainforest is organized in height. The experience is meant to be sensory too. The museum describes rainstorms, waterfalls and the fragrance of flowers combining so that visitors feel as though they are deep in the forest. Slow down, breathe in, and let the air do some of the teaching.

4. 04

   What Makes a Rainforest: Science and Amazon Residents

   What does it actually take to call a place a tropical rainforest? One widely used definition, by the researcher C. Whitmore in 1990, is built on climate. The yearly average temperature should be above 18 degrees Celsius, or the gap between the hottest and coldest months should be no more than 5 degrees. Rainfall should fall between 2,000 and 4,000 millimeters a year, with more than 100 millimeters in every single month. The result is heat, humidity and rain with no real dry season, and that steady climate is the heart of a rainforest. That explains why a greenhouse is needed here: the whole setting has to be recreated. It also explains the animals you meet near the visitor center. There, you can see river fish from the Amazon basin, as well as poison dart frogs, which belong to the rainforest environment. As you watch the fish and frogs, remember that the museum frames the plants and animals together as one living system. The greenhouse is not just decoration. It is a compact lesson in how heat, water and life depend on one another.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   The greenhouse has a story that stretches beyond its glass. After the National Museum of Natural Science opened in 1993, the Taichung city government handed over a reserved park site behind the museum, called Park Number 54, to be planned as a botanical garden. The central government supplied funding, and the city gave the land free of charge. The garden opened on the twenty-third of July in 1999. The greenhouse is only one of its 10 themed areas. Around it you can find low-elevation zones for northern, central and southern Taiwan, a monsoon forest zone, an uplifted coral reef area, a vine area, a succulent area, an Orchid Island area, a coastal forest area and a Taitung cycad area. Exploring them shows you the forest under glass beside the living landscapes of Taiwan itself. Then ask yourself something as you leave the humid air for the street: which layer of the forest did you find the most surprising, the canopy, the epiphytes or the floor?