EXCHANGES OF PLANTS

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22003, 29 January 1937, Page 3

EXCHANGES OF PLANTS

BOTANIC GARDENS

SCHEME

AID TO STUDENTS OF HORTICULTURE

To the thousands of sightseers that visit the Christchurch Botanic Gardens every year, the orderly maintenance of the acres of gardens and lawns and the constant changing of the flower displays would seem sufficient occupation for the small staff employed. But to entitle it to the term botanic the staff of the gardens carries out a big work that is of interest chiefly to the small body of botanists and also to students of horticulture in the conduct of a world-wide system of exchanges with gardens and botanic institutions overseas..

From all corners of the earth are gathered, regularly, interesting and useful botanic specimens to complete groups of plant life already, in the gardens or else to start a new group 3ust as in the museums collections of historical or geological value are built up. Every plant, collection of seeds, or specimen received from overseas is acknowledged, recorded, and its development watched and tended. In return the Christchurch Gardens send away samples of New Zealand flora, and surplus plants- and seeds, originally exotic, obtained by exchange in days past. In the same way the history of these is recorded and their i destination set down on the records. The overseas section of the exchange includes such addresses as the Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University; John Innes Plant Research Station, Wimbledon; the Royal Botanic Gardens. Ireland; the Royal Horticultural Society, London; Golden Gate Park, San Francisco; the Royal Bottanic Gardens, Kew; the Garden of Sub-Tropical Cultures, Sukhum Transcaucasus, Russia; the AU-Union Research Institute of Humid Sub-Tropics, Sukhum Transcaucasusj the Institute of Plant Industry, Leningrad; the SubTropical Botanic Gardens, Batum; the Sub-Tropical Committee, Moscow; the Gorki State University, Russia; as well

as the botanic gardens at Montevideo, Jena (Germany), Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Edinburgh, Tokyo (Japan), Singapore, Vienna, Berlin, Venezuelos (Chile), Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Upsala (Sweden), Tahiti, Colombo, Jamaica, Paris, Apia, Baku (Russia), Brooklyn (United States). Private collectors for the gardens abroad are at Minnesota, United States; Tiverton, England; Portland, Oregon; Manitoba, and La Mortola Private Botanic Gardens, Italy. Also on the excbange list are included many such countries as Niue Island, the Chatham Islands, Java, and New Guinea. Coming nearer home, the Christchurch Botanic Gardens, along with all the other main gardens in New Zealand, prepares each year an exchange list of plants for sending to sister gardens in New Zealand. Next there is the nurserymen's exchange, and on this list are the addresses of not only the nurserymen of Christchurch but as far south as Invercargill, Auckland in the north, and over to Melbourne. Last there is the private exchange where the curator (Mr J. A. McPherson), if he does not receive plants by donation, is prepared to exchange with individuals to enrich the plant collections in the gardens. It is quite safe to say that the exchange system saves the Christchurch Botanic Gardens several hundred pounds per annum, and many of the plants being received cannot even be purchased. "The reason why the gardens are enabled to send away such a quantity of seeds of New Zealand plants," Mr McPherson said to a representative of "The Press," "is because of the very enthusiastic band of plant lovers only too pleased to be of assistance at any time for the purpose of collecting the rarer native seeds from the mountains. One must never overlook the fact that the Christchurch Botanic Gardens are more than a public park. They are the nucleus of a botanical institution and as such deserve the support of every person in the province."