Hi Mummy,
we visited an arboretum today. An arboretum is a collection of trees, sort of a botanical garden containing living collections of woody plants intended at least partly for scientific study. We went to "Staatsforst Burgholz", a woodland area which is situated in both urban area of Wuppertal and also the urban area of Solingen, but only a small part of it. When World War II was over, there were nearly all trees felled for rebuilding of destroyed city areas and also as firewood.
Searching for fast-growing forest species trees from foreign counties were planted than in this area to study their growth in local weather conditions. Plants from North America, South America, Asia and Europe were planted.
There are several walking paths through the arboretum, of course we chose the longest of them, about 6 km long, displaying a variety of trees from Europe, America and Asia.
We went to Wuppertal by bus and had to walk for about 15 minutes to reach the starting point of today's walk. I saw this lovely painted house.
We saw an information board, showing some facts about this district of Wuppertal, Cronenberg.
We reached the forest than and also the starting point of our walking-tour.
We had to follow the yellow marking, showing a pine cone.
We saw lots of interesting trees, this one showing cork tissue instead of the usual bark.
From here you can see the L 74, a highway, feeder road to the motorway A 46.
We rested here for a while.
Due to the really bad weather during the last week we also saw lots of mushroom. Katja said that these were looking really funny. I don't know why, I t hink they look they an average mushroom.
This tree is a coast Douglas fir, usually growing at the West coast of North America ...
... and its cone.
We walked to a section of the forest where trees from Asia were growing. This "false cypress" is originally growing in Japan.
This is a beech, usually growing in South America.
You can see this tree growin in German gardens sometimes, it is called "Monkey-Puzzle", growing in Chile and Argentina.
We were sitting in the middle of our walking path here, it is completely covered with grass.
Do you know Katsura trees? They are called "Kuchenbäume" in German (cake trees), because in autumn their withering leafes smell like gingerbread.
This was a really interesting trip today 
Bye
Bussi
