WILD FLOWERS

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 224, 21 September 1935, Page 2 (Supplement)

WILD FLOWERS

A SURVEY OF EMPIRE.

A beautiful book devoted to a description of "The Wild Flowers of the Great Dominions of the British Empire," written and illustrated by the Lady Rockley, C.8.E., of London, lias been published by Macmillan and Co. The author has won fame among flower-lovers for her books on gardening in England, but in this large and handsome volume she takes a much wider field. She has travelled in Canada, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa and hasjcollected plants for Kew, and she essays here to give a popular account of tho indigenous flowering trees and shrubs and plants to be seen in tho Dominions. She lias certainly been successful in the effort to produce a survey that will interest the nonbotanist and at the same time be of scientific value. It is not a technical work; nothing could be more pleasant to read and easy to understand by the nonexpert in botany than her descriptions of the quite amazing .variety of lovely and curious flowers that grow wild in the countries she visited. ■ / -

It is very apparent that South Africa is tho greatest flower-hunting ground. She is perfectly at home there. _ That impression is heightened on a reading of some of the other sections, all of which, however, are charmingly written and illustrated with care and beauty.

The Lady Rockley does not .confine herself to the flowers. The great timber trees in Canada and British Columbia aroused her admiration, New Zealandvreaders can join in her regrets at tho waste and havoc wrought, by fire in those most soluable forests. The Canadian forests seemed endless, in spite of the destruction by fire and lumbermen. It was different in Australia, where the real forest land is small in extent —only 3.03 per cent of the Commonwealth's area. In reviewing Australia she gives a chapter to the many kinds of gum trees, and the great variety of acacias, most of which are commonly known as wattle. Two-thirds of 1 the known acacias come from Australia, where there are some 400 species. "Tho feeling of - Australia is of great open space's. The gum trees do not as a rule form dense forests like the forests of conifers in Canada." She regretted to see the results of "ringbarking" the eucalyptus trees in tlie process of clearing the back-country for settlement. The great bare gum trees after ringbarking "stand there looking like gaunt ghosts and giving a strange feeling of depression to those not accustomed to the sight." Their strange forbidding appearance suggestive of fhe conquering of the wild has called forth these lines, deep with thought and feeling, which perhaps only the Australian-bor# can fully share"— and most of Alan Mulgan's poem "Dead Timber," which refers to New Zealand, but is perhaps even more applicable to the Australia landscape. When t>he comes to the wild flowers she finds a great deal that' is very beautiful, and much that is very strange. ■ She went up as far as Darwin in Northern Australia.

In New Zealand the author was particularly interested in the glory of the ferns, so many and so luxuriant. Manuka pleased her eye, and she quotes with appreciation a poetic passage by Hilda •Keane (Mrs. F. Carr Rollett) on this fragrant habitant of our land. The darkness, coolness, moisture and aromatic sweetness of the forest came as a contrast to Australia's bush. There are coloured plates of oiu 'flora; and there are two excellent sketches in colour showing, a characteristic bit of bush near Wellington, and by way of contrast a landscape of open lands, with the cabbage-trees in the foreground, a true picture of some of our sheep country in both islands.

In general, the Lady Rocklcy, though she apparently did not make a long stay iri New Zealand', is very aCcuratd in her impressions of the trees and flowers, and she acknowledges the help of the late Dr. L. Cockayne and Dr. H; H. Allen, who read- her MS. relating to this country.

There is an endless world of plantlore in the African section, which should particularly interest our Auckland flower South Africa is the original iiome of many of the most brilliant flowers that flourish in our New Zealand go i dens. J.C.