PLANT SANCTUARIES.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18369, 30 April 1925, Page 7

PLANT SANCTUARIES.

PRESERVING NATIVE FLORA. • (raOJt OTO OWN COBBESPONDENT.) SYDNEY, April 23. Outlying parts of Sydney, which till recent years have.been oylvam pictures of native flora, are beiP" so rapidly built on and homebuilders ar- so ruthlessly tearing up the old native trees that have spread their shade and their beauty right down the years, and substituting for them all sorts of exotics, that public opinion is being aroused on the question of establishing plant sanctuaries and preserving some at least of the woodlands that remain in the 1 citv's environs, before it is too late. What a few years ago were picturesque spots brightened by old spreading trees and the sweet notes of birds, are gradually becoming densely populated suburbs. Red-roofed bungalows shoot up. Then come paths and roads, then telegraphs, and all the other modern facilities that minister to men, and it is good-bye to the birds and the* trees. They are. aliens in their own country and are swept out. Perhaps the last stronghold of the nativo trees and birds about Sydney is the North Shore, but the fear is that this, too, will disappear, especially when the harbour bridge is built, and the city inevitably spreads that way. Not only are the destructive agencies of man disfiguring the landscape of a crowded metropolis, but »«other cause for concern among those who have some regard for the civic aesthetics is the relentless march of couch grass, which is smothering out of existence native plants of comparatively large size, and in this work of destruction buffalo and i othet„exotie grasses are collaborating. I It is the beauty of the North Shore) that is most threatened by all these agencies, 'and by eome of the most J aggressive of sub-tropical weeds. Settlement has set in so vigorously there that there is at last an awaken- ■ ing to the fact that the enduring charms of native trees and bird life have their place in the economy of life, j as well as plain bricks and 1