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WIDE RANGE OF SPECIES.

(By A.W.) There are several interesting and unsual trees in Albert Park, many of them of considerable age, as age goes, for importations in Auckland. Most of those planted in more recent years are oaks. The giants of the park are the Moreton Bay figs (Ficus macrophylla), splendid tropicallooking trees, with the buttressed trunks, but not the aerial roots, of their cousin the banyan. Another relative is the india-rubber tree, once popular as a pot plant for indoor growth, and which resembles the rubber tree of commerce only in name. Another Australian is the kaurilike tree on the southern side of the park, which has developed one-sidedly owing to rubbing shoulders too closely with its neighbour, a widespreading English elm. A very beautif-ul fig with much smaller leaves than the Moreton Bay species, growing near the path below the Sir George Grey statue, has been badly disfigured by a recent lopping off of its branches. A noblybuttressed trunk is also possessed by a Phytolacca from South America, now just coming ipto leaf. This is the bellasom.bra tree of Mexico and Southern California, regarded as one of the handsomest shade trees in the world. Other large trees are the cork oaks, the best of which are near the Bowen Avenue side of the park. These are of graceful growth, the small leaves revealing the pattern of the wide-spreading branches. It is a native of Southern Asia. The camphor tree, with its shining, bright-green foliage, lias also a tropical glamour. This tree has been extensively planted in the warmest of the American States. The leaves are only slightly aromatic, the camphor being extracted from the wood. It is a close relative of the cinnamon. The deodar also brings the romance of the East, in spite of its sombre, larch-like appearance. To the Hindu it is the Tree of the Gods, and it is nearly related to the cedar of Lebanon. The Chinese Tree of Heaven is represented in the rows of ailanthus in Bowen Avenue, Another visitor from China is the photinia, now crowned with white, lauristinus-like flowers. Most gardening writers describe this as a 6hrub, but in Auckland it attains the height and spread of a well-grown tree. Flowering trees are not well represented in the park. The tulip magnolia, with its profusion of large purplish blossoms borne on ibare stems, makes a brief display in spring. It is followed by the gold of several kowhais. Later the red" and pink hawthorns fronting Wellesley Street have a short glory, and late summer brings the rose-coloured oleander.

Amongst the trees of northern climes are the afore-mentioned oaks, dozens of them in all stages of growth; planes, now swinging the little red balls which have gained for them in some countries the name of "button-tree"; chestnuts, pinee and that most feminine of trees, the graceful silver birch. Natives, except for kowhais and pohutukawae, are few. There ie a small rewarewa, some undistinguished puriris, a titoki, several karoe, and, most handsome of all, a large puka. This, one of the rarest of trees in a native state, is one of the most frequently-found in gardens. The best displayed of the natives ie the fine clump of pohutukawas clinging to the slope above Victoria Street. They are not quite as picturesque as the -wind-disciplined specimens of our sea cliffs, which led a visiting authority to describe the pohutukawa as the most artistic •tree that grows. Heaven alone knows what language he would use to describe those planted on the waterfront road if the suggestion to transform them into obese masses of herbage by pruning is carried out. An analogy • may ibe made with the Monterey cypresses, # which all visitors to San Francisco are expected to make a special excursion to see. This much-praised Monterey cypress is only our rather clumsy friend, the maerocarpa, twisted and curbed by sea winds until it assumes a pattern that might decorate a Japanese screen. New Zealanders as a whole seem to have less feeling for trees than any other race on earth, perhaps because they have never known the lack of them, and this country remains the only one of any importance to be without a botanic garden worthy of the name. A proper labelling of tie plants in all our parks and public gardens, the popular name as well ae the botanic being given, might stimulate pride in the -large range of species that can be grown. At present the only flutter of enthusiasm seems to be roused by that particularly homely vegetable, the palm, regardless of the fact that there is far more beauty and landscape value in a branched cabbage tree than in the corpulent phoenix. Perhaps no other plant has been given stich world-wide distribution for the beautification of public and private gardens as the New Zealand cabbage tree, yet no visitor to Auckland would find cause to suspect that it is a native of these shores. He will find it much more flatteringly displayed in California, Southern England, Nice or Monte Carlo.

Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AS19321001.2.41.1

Bibliographic details

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 233, 1 October 1932, Page 8

Word Count
842

WIDE RANGE OF SPECIES. Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 233, 1 October 1932, Page 8

WIDE RANGE OF SPECIES. Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 233, 1 October 1932, Page 8

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