To walk from one side to the other of the landmark Haupt Conservatory at the New York Botanical Garden, visitors must pass through a giant rabbit hole.
It’s just like the one young Alice falls through in the Lewis Carroll classic “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” The book and its sequel are the inspiration for a new exhibition, “Wonderland: Curious Nature,” at the botanical garden in the Bronx.
Carroll was inspired by the Oxford Botanic Garden in England during his time as a professor at Oxford.
“A really nice feature of this year’s exhibition is that in addition to the many collection plants that we brought up from the Nolan Greenhouses, which really don’t get to see the light of day in the public sphere too much, we were able to grow most of the plants you are seeing now by seed,” Brian Sullivan, the Vivian and Edward Merrin vice president for glasshouses and landscape, said.
Among the highlights is the aquatic Victoria Lily, a giant water lily from the Amazon.
“Think back in [the] 1850s. These were very unusual plants,” Sullivan said. “We kind of take them for granted now because we have been seeing them for a while, but for a person in Victorian England to see a giant water lily was pretty astounding.”
A trip through the rabbit hole leads to the Wonderland Garden, which features oddities like carnivorous plants, mushrooms and plants and flowers big and small, all having some fun with scale to mirror Alice’s size change in the book.
There’s a lot more curiosity outside of the conservatory and throughout the garden, including giant kinetic mushroom sculptures, a 12-foot-tall white rabbit made from plants, and a garden cottage built with bricks made of mycelium, a network of fungal threads.
There’s also a single-color chess game designed by Yoko Ono as an appeal for peace. As always, the star of the show is nature, with gorgeous roses and plants grown and collected in the garden.
“For us as horticulturists and plant people, we are thrilled to be able to showcase the diversity of the living collections here at the garden,” Sullivan said.
The exhibition runs through Oct. 27 and features tea parties, programs for families and "Wonderland" night events on select dates. For more information, visit the New York Botanical Garden's website.