STUDY IN NEW CALEDONIA

Press, Volume C, Issue 29509, 10 May 1961, Page 20

STUDY IN NEW CALEDONIA

Mr L. J. Metcalf Returns

Investigating the relationships between plant life in New Zealand and New Caledonia had been a most interesting study, and he had brought back about 300 specimens for the Botanic Gardens and the Botany Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, said the assistantcurator of parks and reserves in Christchurch (Mr L. J. Metcalf) yesterday. Mr Metcalf had just returned from a month’s visit to New Caledonia. He will report to the City Council on his investigations. He had also collected special plant species for Dr. J. B. Hair, who was studying the relationships between podocarps in the two countries, and also soil samples for Dr. Elizabeth Flint, of Canterbury University, said Mr Metcalf. For the first part of his visit, he was assisted by Mr Alan Cookson, a well-known Canterbury mountaineer. Some of the specimens he had collected were flown back to New Zealand in plastic bags, and most of them were in quarantine at the municipal nursery at Linwood. “I am afraid they will have to stay there for 12 months before they can be introduced to the gardens. Only the orchids and ferns I collected are exempt from quarantine restrictions because of their resistance to disease.” Mr Metcalf paid tribute to the New Caledonian Department of Water and Forests, which, he said, had gone out of its way to assist and cooperate with his investigations. “It is a wonderful country, and if I had stayed there much longer I might not have returned,” he said.