The Colac Botanic Gardens is a regional botanical garden

Botanical garden

A botanical garden The terms botanic and botanical, and garden or gardens are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word botanic is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens. is a well-tended area displaying a wide range of plants labelled with their botanical names...

, located at the corner of Fyans and Gellibrand streets, on the shores of Lake Colac

Lake Colac

Lake Colac is situated to the north of the Colac town centre in Victoria, Australia. The lake provides a home for the Yacht Club, Rowing Club and water skiers during the summer months and has many birds. The foreshore has a playground, boat ramp and the Colac Botanical Gardens. Midway through...

 in Colac, Victoria

Colac, Victoria

Colac is a small city located in the Western District of Victoria, Australia, situated approximately 150 kilometres south-west of Melbourne on the southern shore of Lake Colac and the surrounding volcanic plains, approximately 40 km inland from Bass Strait. Colac is the largest city in and...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. Land was allocated in 1865, with the garden being established in 1868 by Daniel Bunce, and later remodelled in 1910 by Melbourne Botanical Gardens director William Guilfoyle

William Guilfoyle

William Robert Guilfoyle was a landscape gardener and botanist in Victoria, Australia, acknowledged as the architect of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne and was responsible for the design of many parks and gardens in Melbourne and regional Victoria.-Early life:Guilfoyle was born in Chelsea,...

.

The Colac Botanic garden covers fifteen hectare

Hectare

The hectare is a metric unit of area defined as 10,000 square metres , and primarily used in the measurement of land. In 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as being 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1/100 km2...

s, and contains over a thousand specimens (more than any other provincial garden in Victoria). The garden hosts variations of trees such as bunya bunya pine (Araucaria bidwillii

Araucaria bidwillii

Araucaria bidwillii, the Bunya Pine, is a large evergreen coniferous tree in the genus Araucaria, family Araucariaceae. It is native to south-east Queensland with two small disjunct populations in northern Queensland's World Heritage listed Wet Tropics, and many fine old specimens planted in New...

), Elia Keightley (Pittosporum tenuifolium

Pittosporum tenuifolium

Pittosporum tenuifolium is a small evergreen tree native to New Zealand, known by the Maori names kohuhu and kohukohu, or as Black Matipo . It is sometimes grown under the cultivar name 'Nigricans', so called because of its black stems...

), Firewheel Tree (Stenocarpus sinuatus

Stenocarpus sinuatus

Stenocarpus sinuatus, known as the Firewheel Tree is an Australian rainforest tree in the Protea family. The range of natural distribution is in various rainforest types from the Nambucca River in New South Wales to the Atherton Tableland in tropical Queensland...

), Bird Plant (Crotalaria agatiflora) and Tecate Cypress (Cupressus forbesii

Cupressus forbesii

Cupressus forbesii is a species of cypressin western North America. -Distribution:Cupressus forbesii is native to chaparral and woodlands habitats and grows at...

). Several trees in the garden have been placed on the Victorian Significant Tree Register.