The Plant Collection
A total of 403 plant taxa has been recorded at Olive Pink Botanic Garden in 2008, including 145 naturally occurring species (10 of which are weeds, the remainder being local native forbs, grasses or shrubs and trees), and 258 species of Central Australian plants propagated from seed or cutting material collected in the wild. Amongst the total species in the grounds, there are 28 species of rare or threatened species. Click here to see the plant collection species list. In the list the following conservation codes are used to describe the geographic range, rarity and reservation status of each species.
Conservation Code Legend:
1: type collection only;
2: range of less than 100km; 3: range of greater than 100km;
E or e: Endangered nationally or in southern NT; V or v: Vulnerable nationally or in southern NT; R or r: Rare nationally or in southern NT; K or k: Poorly known nationally or in southern NT;
C: conserved; a: adequately reserved; i: inadequately reserved; -: unknown population size within a reserve.

All of the species in the plant collection occur within the southern bioregions of the Northern Territory (south of Elliot: ~18 degrees S, to the border with South Australia at ~26 degrees S), and have specimens held in the Northern Territory Herbarium (Alice Springs) collection.

All of the planted specimens in the Garden have been grown by our Garden Growers Group using the nursery facilities at the Alice Springs Desert Park. Detailed records are kept for each seedling or cutting grown, so that the original wild source of every plant can be traced through the accession records kept by Desert Park staff.

The plant collection is constantly being extended to include more species representative of the range of flora present in Central Australia. However, there are several species that have failed to establish within the Garden despite repeated efforts – these are usually habitat-specific plants that require specialised soil or microclimate conditions that we cannot easily replicate within the Garden.

Desert kurrajongs (Brachychiton gregorii) are one of the tree species grown in the Garden	Yellow rattlepods (Crotalaria novae-hollandiae) are part of the planted understorey at Olive Pink Botanic Garden