As part of this year’s Twilight with the Museums, award winning TV presenters, Maddie Moate and Greg Foot (CBeebies’ Maddie’s Do You Know?, Blue Peter, Let’s Go Live) will be live from the Garden’s Glasshouses – in a unique livestreamed event – to find clues, solve puzzles and search the tropical rainforests and deserts of the Garden’s Glasshouses by night! But they need your help!
Help them find the secrets of the mysterious Moonflower, which flowered at the Garden for the first time last year.
Mystery of the Moonflower event, Wednesday 16 February, 7pm
Watch the trailer:
The Moonflower is known to be one of the rarest flowers in the world, its secrets known to only a few. In the darkness of the Garden’s glasshouses, amongst the tropical trees and orchids, on Wednesday 16 February at 7pm, the Mystery of the Moonflower awaits…
But wait… Maddie and Greg need your help to unlock the secrets of this amazing plant!
Join them online to help spot clues and solve puzzles, as they travel from mountain habitats, to tropical rainforest, wetlands and arid lands, discovering plants as they attempt – only with your help – to escape from the Glasshouses armed with the secrets of the mysterious Moonflower!
“We are REALLY excited to be taking part in ‘The Mystery of Moonflower’! We love escape rooms, interactive games, and adventure stories, so we can’t wait to bring all those together for this interactive twilight livestream! The best part is that for this adventure we get to bring YOU online detectives along to help us find clues and solve the puzzles! We’ll see you on-screen on the 16th Feb!”
Sally Lee, CUBG Learning Officer adds: “I’m not sure Maddie and Greg know what they’re letting themselves in for! Though I’m sure they’ll have fun because we’ve got such exciting puzzles planned and the Glasshouses are so atmospheric after dark. One thing’s for sure, they are definitely going to need viewers’ help to solve some of the mysteries, so they will need as many people as possible tuning in on the night.”
‘Mystery of the Moonflower’ is suitable for children of all ages with a sense of adventure (and adults may enjoy it too!)! It will take place live on YouTube on Wednesday 16 February at 7pm.
The ‘Mystery of the Moonflower’ event is free for all to watch online and is part of the University of Cambridge’s Twilight with the Museums: Digital Sleepover from 4.30pm, Wednesday 16 February. On this day, the University of Cambridge Museums (UCM) and local partners are inviting families to recreate the wonder of a night at the museums in their own homes.
Among the many Twilight activities on offer, families will be able to listen to renowned storyteller Wendy Shearer’s tale inspired by objects from the Fitzwilliam Museum, enjoy a theatre performance featuring encounters with wild animals and mythical beasts, try out some ‘Climate Change Karaoke’, experience some ‘spooky’ encounters from the Sedgwick Museum, along with den-building, hands-on crafts, and more before watching live at 7pm to help Maddie and Greg with the ‘Mystery of the Moonflower’.
Find out more and sign-up to receive a sleepover planning guide full of tips and activities to prepare for the night, suggested itineraries, and access to the full Twillight Digital Sleepover programme.
About the Moonflower:
Our Moonflower, Selenicereus wittii, flowered for the first time in February 2021. It is believed to be the first flowering of a Moonflower in the UK. The event was livestreamed and watched by over 500,000 people from across the world. This year, the Moonflower is showing some buds, but as yet, whether they will become a leaf or flower remains a mystery!