The ODD ANGLE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 39, 16 February 1943, Page 2

The ODD ANGLE

(By MacCLURE.) ® "A MONUMENTAL WORK" You never want to worry if things don't go as you planned 'em. They seldom do, and as often as not, the way they do work out suits the crowd better. Take our own plans for last week-end, for instance. Old Alf and i had planned to beat it for the bush—up Wliangarci way. That way we would (we reckoned) get away from our neighbour's radio and being dragged into a quarrel with Alf's four married daughters who have not yet recovered from the city-wide chase for school-books for their kids, and, in addition to getting a breath of country air. we had hoped to drop in to Waipti and taste of the home-made "Heather Brew" the MacTaggarts had been skiteing they could turn out at a quarter of the price our own sly-grog man charges. But—we hadn't reckoned on MaeFungus, the brilliant (if erratic) author of yon "Text book on Botany" 1 mentioned last week. As we passed his house we noticed him sifting ghoulishly plucking the petals off a beautiful flower. Looking up he fair glow'red at us. "Ah, read yon disparaging reference tae ma monumental wor-r-rk," he said savagely, clenching his fists. "The man who can understand it needs a monument," i replied defiantly. © A MAX WITH A WHOLIi-TI>IK JOIt And then we met Mr. Thornton, the head gardener at the Auckland railway station. "It's a pleasure, Mac." he said, when 1 suggested lie show us around. The beautiful, well-kept forecourt, the native trees in the oncn nursery across Ronayne Street, the glass and bushhouses on the first floor of the station, the fern house with its magnificent collection of New Zealand ferns—who that has had the pleasure of ever viewing these beautiful sights could ever forget 'em? "By gum, and they does do 'em op'ni-ice," an elderly North Country man was telling his wife as we passed along the l'oreivurt. We noticed several American visitors carefully noting the displays. The two trousered girl assistants were hard at work in the border, while across the way the third was collecting freesia bulbs to put away till next season. "Come and i'll show you what you want to see," Roy said, and whisked us up in the lift to the bush houses. Here, sheltered from the elements, we saw box after box of beautiful, toy-like rimus, kawakas, kauris, lacebarks, matais, looking like nothing on earth so much as a huge Noah's Ark garden. "Aren't they beautiful?" Roy asked, with all the enthusiasm of a true forest lover. "Raised from seed— I've watched them like a father. Look at these," he said, pointing to some tiny titokis. "Perhaps we should have brought Professor MacFungus with us—he'd probably be able to describe them so as we wouldn't know what the hell any of 'em were," old Alf said. ® A NEW WOKI7D OF 15 EA LTV One of these days, space permitting, I will race you over this beautiful and comparatively little known New World Mr. Roy Thornton has, in one short decade, created in our midst. Some of us remember this place as it was when the builders of our Central Station had completed their task, an ugly, barren, forbidding scene of desolation. As each engine poured out its deadly sulphur-dioxide fumes over the scene the stoutest hearted gardener may well have shrunk from the prospect of making anything of it. To-day it invites comparison with anything in the southern hemisphere. The rata vine that climbs persistently up the bare concrete wall of the ramp, the "horse-shoed" king fern, the seedling miro trees in the bush houses up on the tirst floor—these as well as the forecourt, the potted plants and shrubs. Mamakus and Phoenix palms alike need care; the extremely rare Polypodium Tasnianii from the Three Kings presents a problem all on its own: the vandals who pluck the pot plants out of their pots add to the labours; manpower shortage adds one more item. Work, work and more work, unremitting, with Nature, engines and vandals all conspiring to undo to-day the labours of yesterday; surely Mr. Thornton lias* earned our city's gratitude for what he lias accomplished. No need here for the MaeFunguses to blind us with botanical science. Here our true New Zealanders. our magnificent native flora can be seen at its best. In the flowering season the kowhais blaze their scarlet and golden trails, shelter hedges ot puriris, karnkas. hoherias and pobutukawas break the winds, tree ferns and border plants alike evoke the enthusiasm of the onlookers.