Flecker Botanic Gardens is a heritage-listed botanic garden at Collins Avenue, Edge Hill, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1886 to 1960s. It is now known as Cairns Botanic Gardens, and also known as Edge Hill Nursery, and Fitzalan's Botanical Gardens. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 2 February 2007.
History
The Flecker Botanic Gardens, a public reserve south of Mt Islay in the Mt Whitfield Range, was established in the mid-1880s as part of a recreation reserve, just a decade after the town of Cairns was first surveyed in 1876 as a port to service the Hodgkinson goldfield. Although never officially gazetted for botanic garden purposes, botanic gardens were developed in the recreation reserve at its inception. The work of botanist Eugene Fitzalan in the 1880s and 1890s, Cairns City Council nurserymen and curators from the 1920s and naturalist Dr Hugo Flecker from the 1930s to the 1950s, has contributed to the development of the gardens as a significant botanic and recreation space in Cairns. Of cultural heritage significance the garden area is bounded by Collins Avenue and McCormack, Goodwin and McDonnell Streets.
In 1884 the Cairns Progress Association had advocated for a botanic garden to be established in the vicinity of Cairns. During the 19th and early 20th centuries botanic gardens were considered important for recreation, the preservation of indigenous vegetation, the display of native flora and fauna, and the acclimatisation of economically useful plants. In November 1886 an area of about west and south of Mount Islay, comprising suburban sections 71, 74, 75 and 76 (surveyed in 1885), was gazetted as a temporary reserve for recreation under the control of Cairns Municipal Council (established in 1885). This land comprised the southern and western foothills of Mt Islay and a lowland swamp.
Previous non-indigenous use of the land had been restricted to timber cutting, the forming of tracks through the rainforest scrub to assist with timber extraction, and Chinese market garden cultivation in the northeast corner of the reserve. The site was located approximately from the centre of Cairns adjacent to the recently surveyed Cairns to Kuranda railway right of way, which would make it publicly accessible. In April 1887 suburban section 68 was added, to create a reserve of over . A further was added in May 1892, when swampy land lying between the recreation reserve and the railway line was incorporated into the reserve, including an area at the foot of Mount Islay, west of Saltwater Creek, previously cultivated by Chinese market gardeners under special lease.
In December 1886 the Cairns Municipal Council came to an agreement with Eugene Fitzalan, a trained botanist, to establish an ornamental garden on the recreation reserve, sufficiently attractive to entice the public. In return Fitzalan was permitted to sell refreshments (which would enhance the public appeal of the gardens) and to operate a private commercial nursery from the reserve. He was appointed caretaker of the reserve with a nominal annual salary of .
Eugene Fitzherbert Albini Fitzalan (1830 - 1911) was born in Derry, Ireland and was a botanical collector in England and Mexico before arriving in Australia in 1849. He was a keen orchid collector, and on at least one occasion collected with Baron von Mueller, who regarded Fitzalan's specimens very highly. Fitzalan had at least two orchids named after him by von Mueller. He made many botanical expeditions in Victoria and along the Queensland coast on the Spitfire in 1860, at Mount Elliot with botanist John Dallachy in 1863 and in the Daintree area in 1875, before arriving in Cairns in 1886. He developed nurseries in Geelong, Brisbane and Bowen and collected specimens for the Herbarium of Victoria. A number of Fitzalan's specimens were sent to Kew Gardens, London, where they were examined by taxonomist George Bentham for inclusion in the botanical volumes of Flora australiensis. At least nine plant specimens were named after him: Pinalia fitzalanii, Eulophia fitzalanii, Lepistemon fitzalanii, Macropteranthes fitzalanii, Musa fitzalanii, Psychotria fitzalanii, and Atractocarpus fitzalanii. The last of these is a native gardenia that has been extensively planted as a street tree in Cairns.