TROPICAL GARDEN IN HAMILTON

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29189, 27 April 1960, Page 24

TROPICAL GARDEN IN HAMILTON

Project Nearing Completion “The Press" Special Service HAMILTON, April 26. The development of a “tropical garden” in Hamilton has been taking place for the last 12 months. Undertaken by the parks and reserves department of the Hamilton City Council, the project is not yet complete, but it is hoped that, by the beginning of July, it will be open to the public. Such tropical plants as cotton, rubber (wild and commercial), bananas and pineapple have already been obtained. There are also such other plants as the “screw pine,” or pandanus, and the “dumb cane.” This plant, indigenous to the West Indies, is said to have been used by slave traders to render their captives silent. Officially it goes under the title of Dieffenbachia. A more pleasant plant is one which, in more northerly areas, can be grown without protection. It is the fruit salad plant, Monstera delicosa, the fruit of which lives up to its name if a plant is allowed to grow large enough to bear them. The building, which cost about £2OOO, houses 425 species and varieties of 55 genera in 800 pots and tubs.