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This is number 1 - and the only multi-cache - in a series of 3 caches set in the glorious grounds of the St Andrews Botanic Garden, and designed to encourage visitors old and new to explore the huge variety of different habitats and plant collections within the Garden. There are six questions, all of which can be answered without stepping off the paths/grass, leading to a small snap-lock container hidden somewhere in the Garden.
If you're pushed for time, solving the coordinates for this multi will take you close to the other two traditional caches, and the description below will alert you when you are closest to them in case you want to interrupt the multi and bag the other two on your way round.
A modest entrance fee is in place: Adults £2, Children £1; annual family membership £15. Entry is free on certain days of the year (e.g. Open Day, see www.st-andrews-botanic.org for details of dates and opening times). Free parking in the carpark, lavatories to the east of the glasshouses. Sorry no dogs.
All three of these caches are accessible from the paths or from grass, and none require the cacher to step onto the beds in the Garden, or to disturb any planting other than ivy. Given the setting of the botanical garden, where precious dormant plants/bulbs can be just under the surface of the soil, cachers are asked to be especially careful where they put their feet. If the GPS is jumping about on the day please read the hint or get in touch with the CO rather than exploring off the beaten path - many thanks!
All comments and suggestions for improvements made in the logs will be read with great interest by the CO.
This multi cache is not to be found at the above coordinates, which are for the car park, but at another site in the garden whose coordinates you can work out by answering the following questions (the location for each question has its own waymark point which you can download):
1) Car park; Apricot. N 56 20.051, W002 48.422
Start your hunt in the car park. Behind you on the grass in the middle of the car park is a lovely collection of conifers including dawn redwoods (Metasequoia glyptostroboides), 'living fossils' identical to those present in the late Cretaceous, 65 million years ago. They were thought for many years to be extinct until rediscovered in one grove in China in the 1940s.
In front of you is the largest apricot tree (Prunus armeniaca) in the British Isles, the recognised British Champion. The garden boasts a dozen champion trees registered with TROBI, the Tree Register of the British Isles - pick up a leaflet at the gatehouse if you would like to do the full tour.
A = How tall - in m - is the apricot tree?
2) Peace Garden: Cherry. N 56 20.073, W002 48.374
Enter the garden (the gatehouse is open summer 10-4, otherwise there's an honesty box on the hut opposite), and make your way to the Peace Garden. To the left of the stone and behind you will find another fine member of the Prunus family, a Sargent's cherry, at its peak in May and then autumn.
B = What was the year of accession of this tree (the four-number date that records when the tree was planted can be found in the bottom right corner of the plant label after the oblique). 196?
3) Orchid House. N 56 20.094, W002 48.275
(NB: You are close to GC3RJ0M Molluscum juniperosum, should you wish to hunt for it now.)
Resuming the multi, make your way to the far east of the glasshouses, and go inside the Orchid House, about half way along its length. This glasshouse contains both terrestrial and epiphytic species and varieties, set among a wide range of plants to display the various growth forms. Epiphytes are commonly known as 'air plants' because they do not root in soil. The epiphytic collection of Orchids, Bromeliads, Gesneriaceae and ferns are displayed permanently on artificial trees which are misted regularly.
Three species of the epiphytic genus Tillandsia are hanging on a wire from the bark covered archway over the path.
C = What was their year of accession (the four-number date that records when the tree was planted can be found in the bottom right corner of the plant label after the oblique)? 200?
4) Temperate House. N 56 20.114, W002 48.315
Now walk through the glasshouses til you get to the Temperate House, on your right through some sliding doors (however you find the doors, leave them like that - the gardeners adjust the temperature). The interpretation panel 'Trees and Shrubs of an Ancient Forest' lists the altitude at which the *greatest density and variety* of Rhododendrons are found.
D = 2?00 - 3700m
5) Peat Beds. N 56 20.124, W002 48.405
Leave the Temperate House at the opposite end to the panel, and go through the herb garden and out past the herbaceous borders. Walk through the order beds to the top of the Peat Garden, with the scree garden in front of you to your left. The coordinates for waypoint 5 will lead you to another interpretation panel : The Peat Garden.
E = According to the panel, how many plant families predominate in this part of the garden?
(NB: you are now the closest you will be, whilst doing this multi, to GC3RJ05 Leaf it Be)
6) Oregon Alder. N 56 20.160, W002 48.431
Resuming the multi, make your way down the slope beside the stream and ponds to the foot of the peat garden. The last answer is to be found on the information sheet for another champion tree (but this time only champion in Fife), the Oregon alder (Alnus rubra).
F = What is the girth of this Oregon alder? 18?cm
Well done! Now find a nice bench (there's one at the edge of the big pond with superlative views…) to work out the coordinates of the actual cache.
N 56 20.xyz
W 002. 48.uvw
x = B - C
y = B - E
z = C - E
u = D x F
v = C x F
w = A + F
******** Congratulations to Pitbul99 for the FTF! **************
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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