The Helia Bravo Hollis Botanical Garden in Zapotitlán de Salinas, Puebla (Mexico) is all about native plants. The area around the visitor center has been fixed up (plants added, red lava rock and paths and hardscape) but the rest of the garden, which is set on a hill, is all natural. The only thing they did up there was put a path through (and a lookout platform at the top), the rest is habitat. Mother nature's garden, as it were.
Some photos from the visitor center area here. The red lava rock is imported, the native soil is strictly limestone.
Starting with the most lovely Agave marmorata (word meaning marbled, and a small marble quarry very close to this location). This plant is used to make mezcal. Surrounding it, the candelilla (a Euphorbia).
The tiny fruit of the Euphorbia
Yuccas
A Fouquieria (yellow trunk) with an epiphytic bromeliad
Epiphytes galore
Agave karwinskii (grows a couple feet of stem), used to make mezcal
A few older plants here and one that flowered and died, to give an idea about final size
Next to an barrel cactus (Echinocactus) with tetecho (Neobuxbaumia) plants in the background. This place is set in a tetecho forest.
Agave macroacantha and stricta
The symmetry of stricta is sort of intoxicating
Agave angustifolia (used to make mezcal)
Agaves and terrestrial bromeliads side by side
Below the red lava rock, the substrate is limestone. Fossilized coral from the area here
Jatropha cinerea (sangre de grado)
Ferocactus robustus (the most multiheaded member of the genus) with fruit
Some young plants gathered together. L to R in foreground: Neobuxbaumia tetetzo, Beaucarnea gracilis, Mammillaria, Agave marmorata
Interesting details everywhere, like these Coryphanthas in formation (and a Mammillaria)
Toothy agave
That's all for now. As you can see, we were out of light by the end of this visit.
I will try to put together another post in this thread with the in situ garden up the hill.
