Photo= Flowers such as daturas emerge under the spotlights in the dimly-lit Night Flower Garden (upper photo), and the Alpine Garden, which opened at the same time (August 2, Kyoto Botanical Garden, Sakyo Ward, Kyoto)

On August 3, Kyoto Botanical Garden, Sakyo Ward, Kyoto, opened a day-night reversal room, Night Flower Garden, where visitors can appreciate night-blooming flowers in the daytime. The room shuts out as much daylight as possible, and exposes the plants to intense light during the night, which makes them so "jet-lagged" that their flowers open during the day. This is the first facility in Japan in which visitors can enjoy flowers in a dimly-lit room.

The Night Flower Garden, with an area of approximately 80 square meters, was built as an annex to the conservatory. It exhibits 50 pots of about 20 varieties, such as evening primrose, or oenothera tetraptera and Barringtonia.

A sneak preview was held on August 2. In the room with the same level of darkness as in the moonlight, the flowers of snake gourds, four-o'clocks, daturas (Thorn apple) and others appeared pure white under the spotlights, creating a fantastic atmosphere.

Since many varieties of the flowers fall only one night after they open, exhibited flowers change from day to day. There is a plan to add popular flowers such as Queen of the Night and pitaya (dragon fruit) in the near future.

Moreover, the Alpine Garden was newly set up within the conventional conservatory to display alpine plants from Japan and abroad. The exhibits include Himalayan blue poppy and edelweiss, as well as paeonia obovata (Japanese woodland peony) and opithandra which Kyoto Prefecture has designated as rare species of wild plants, and others.

The conservatory is open from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. In addition to the Garden's entrance fee, there is a 200 yen fee for the conservatory.