The Museum Garden Greenhouse - Palm house
The palm house has a tropical climate, a little bit cooler (22°C) than the warm house. The height is ten metres, which is necessary because rainforest trees are tall. In the centre we have a small rainforest with a path. Follow that path and feel for a short moment what it is like in the rainforest. The big trees block the sky. It is dark with a smell of wet earth.
Hovedinnhold
A rainforest is actually quite a dark place and in an old-growth forest there are trees at several levels. Much of the life and production of the rainforest is found up in the canopy. There, the trees and epiphytes bloom in the bright tropical light. The flowers are visited by insects, birds, bats and other animals, and some eat the fruits and disperse the seeds of the plants.
Down at ground level, decomposers such as insects, other arthropods, worms, fungi, feed on the fallen remains. The heat and moisture mean that turnover is rapid and there is rarely much soil. This is why tropical rainforests are very vulnerable to logging. Erosion is rapid and devastating. It can take thousands of years or more to bring back a rich forest.
Here in the Palm House are some large trees, but also banana plants, ferns, ginger relatives, aroids and other undergrowth, creepers and epiphytes, such as the peculiar tropical pitcher plant that traps insects in special leaves.
