Deep in the heart of Mpumalanga, in the city of Nelspruit, close to the Kruger National Park, the Blyde River Canyon and Pilgrim’s Rest, lies the Lowveld National Botanical Garden. It is world-renowned for its amazing collection of mature African cycads (the largest in the world) and the spectacular display of Clivias, while a lesser known, but no less spectacular, feature of the Garden is the recently developed African Rain Forest. The South African forest occupies another section of the Garden and includes the best collection of South African ferns in the country.In 1993, the staff at the Garden decided to recreate the rapidly diminishing African Rain Forest in the heart of South Africa. They started collecting central, west and east African tropical rain forest plants. These plants could not be planted in the existing Garden and a new area was demarcated and developed along the Riverside Trail. For the plants to survive, conditions similar to those where they originally grew, had to be created.