CALL OF THE HILLS.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 218, 13 September 1924, Page 11

CALL OF THE HILLS.

A WHIFF FROM WAITAKERE. SWEET AS F__ASG-_?_-_TI. 'Wiy! is some of the finest bush in '-he province ri.-ht at your back ri or- "' -;i:ii -he amateur naturalist to - ::e of his young friends who was trying - ■ excuse his isnorance of the lovely V-w Zealand forest by nv : n-: that it •a i- -o hart ro find any bush that was -' T.eti to the blue outline of the Waiar.d Titiraniri hills, shuttiner out the western horizon. PTis youna friend -•■••' —."d '"rsnsed: he had not thonsiit ,-- rhe Wai r akeres exactly in that way. Ar.d he is like thousands mors. There »-' thousands in Auckland who know more about places a thousand miles away than -":■■- do about these "delecta • c mountains'" -hat he right at their And ":-t at the pr»*ent time of the y-ar an irnnranre of thi- western hills cause som- of - ie ---r-ni fiowen of our w-:r.ifor-'-t: ■■■'■■ -i - • •--■•ry lovely. One of th--m v- '-. ':.;. only i very brief ' m-> ■ "' • ■ •-._■•— --- i --•--.- weeks at a lout 'b.* i mc t '.:•• yea a scent t.iat :- l- -'.v-,•- is -; ]e fraxuripani. and nrre -•:'..'. Alseuosmia maeronhylla - -.- n-iw forbidding name. Alseuosmia. is made up of two Greek words meair'nii '".-rented grove.'' and that -i ''scribes the thing precisely. Tin? flower :=- creamy and pink in colour, and rather like fusehia in shape; in fact a person seeing it for the first time woulei a-k: "What is the fnschia-tike flower?" -cores - people who hare known the Xew Zen land bush spasmodically all t.ieir lives may never have come across the alsen-osmia, or if they have, may never have suspected its "sweet, scent. c ving to its very brief dowering period -o early in the -iprin-j before most of us ventUTe into the bush. As a matter nt fact. September-is early to go '•bushing.'' Usually Xovember is well advance:! before one thinks it safe to xo far afield off the metal roads, but after a dry winter certain of the clay roads tr.at "lie to the sun" are wonderfully dry by September. None of the brave deserve spring's earliest blossoms, and in addition to the alseuosnria many other Xew Zealand shrubs and trees are e : tiier now flowering or will be shortly. Most of the Sowers in the Xew Zealand bush are quite inconspicuous, but none the less beautiful. And some of Them are v trite large and really lovely. The graceful clematis, with its clusters of white starry flowers fluns over tiie branch of some forest monarch, is worth a day's tramping, and you must always remember that it can never be seen in its alory except in the hush, because it withers almost as soon as it is plucked. Then, in a short while the yellow kowhaia will be a shower of old gold- But the alseuosmia is the one you will remember most if you happen to come aoross it. There are several places in the Waitakere hills where it grows. It usually forms a considerable part of the underzrowth of a kauri forest, anel if you find a clump of kauris you will generally find this sweetscented shrub. , Some day the Waitakere hills will come into their own-, and be appreciated more at their true worth, but at present tiiey are rather too inaccessible for the average town dweller. Since the advent of the motor car these hills are hartily so lonely as they were, say, twenty year 3 ago. and when the blackberries (remnant 3of deserted homesteads) are ripe quite a lot of benzine pollutes the rnourrtain air, but still you an. within a few hours of Queen Street, rind bush that for variety and beauty, is equal to anything in the province.