SLAUGHTERED NIKAU.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 166, 15 July 1924, Page 8

SLAUGHTERED NIKAU.

. ! TO PLEASE MUNICIPAL GUESTS; _ I NEXT DAY, THE DtJST-HEAP. TERRIBLE TOLL OF THE BUSH. There was something quite piquant in the fact that a meeting of all interested in any way in horticulture and horticultural education was held last evening the Auckland City Council Chamber" was said to a "'Star" reporter this morning. ''Because if there is anyone wants educating in the matter it is "the Auckland City Council, that is if horticulture includes the growing of New Zealand plants and trees as well as gaillardias, godetias, and all the other things with queer names." "Meaning?" the irate citizen was asked. "Meaning that if you are seen by any of the City Council's caretakers of the watershed urea up in the Waitakere Hills coming off City Council property with as much as a fern or a Kttle bit of some other native greenery you are promptly bailed up, and you stand the chance of appearing next morning before Mr. Poynton, who is a keen botanist, and goodness knows what your fate would be. Then if you happen to be one of the fortunate ones that are invited to the reception to welcome the Japanese fleet or Admiral Field and the ships of the British Fleet, or in fact any of the municipal 'social functions' that are held from time to time, you would think that you had strayed into a Waitakere glade." Whole avenues of the lovely, nikau —New Zealand's only palm—hide the columns both up and downstairs, and they ornament every pilaster. Everywhere you look there is a forest of these beautiful trees. Not, mark you, just the branches, as in the old days, but whole trees, the magnificent heads cut off with several feet of the trunk. One day I started counting the slaughter, but the sight of those massacred forest beauties was too much for mc, and, like the man that could never finish 'Othello,' I had to give up the task. But there must have been fully a hundred. "Where do they come from? Well, the Waitakere hiils are the only places left that I know of, and in time, when Auckland is a really foig .place, any bush that is left on those heights will be worth its weight in gold. At present there is a wonderful wealth of forest on the hills, in fact I know of no area of similar size where there is such a variety of native flora. The City Council owns thousands of acres, water reserves and parks, and one did hope that the glorious bush would have been sacred in its hands, 'but no, the Council is one of the chief offenders in its ruthless' destruction. For 'ruthless' is the only word. For one brief night's decoration scores of these beautiful nikaus are slaiightered, and next day the growth of thirty or forty years is thrown out on the duet-heap." . "The nikau 13 one of tlie slowestgrowing things in the bush; I have known one ten years old that has not much more than its leaves above the ground. There is no sign yet of the characteristic palm trunk, and some of the groves that have been sacrificed to make a municipal triumph of one night ■ only must have 'been well oh into a century old. If the City ''Council, that placards its bush reserve gates with pains and penalties for "talking away a small fern, cannot refrain from slaughtering its own priceless nikau groves, ; how can it expect the ordinary picnickjing citizen to respect its notices? Quis custodiet ipso custodes? "With this callous example of the lAuckand City Council itself, one cannot expect the smalcr fry to pay much respect to our fast-disappearing bush in ■ the Waitakere hills, and, sad to relate, every tin-pot gathering that takes place I within reach of these beautiful hills takes toll of these beautiful, graceful nikaus. How long , it will be before the slow-growng nikau joins the notornis and the liuia I cannot pretend to guess, but we will hope that the meeting this evening will decide to take the City Council in hand and make them obey the behests on ita own bush reserve gates."