BURPLESS LEADER

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33779, 27 February 1975, Page 3

BURPLESS LEADER

(N.Z.P.A. Staff Correspondent TOKYO, Feb. 26. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr Muldoon) is taking some burpless cucumber seeds back to New Zealand with him. Mr Muldoon got the seeds from a prominent Japanese horticulturist, Takeo Sakata, recognised as one of the world’s leading breeders of F-l hybrid flowers and vegetables. Mr Sakata, who is 85, bred the burpless cucum-

ber with a low acid content to eliminate what he calls “distressing aftereffects.” Mr Muldoon, former president of the Auckland Lily Society and the Auckland Horticultural Society, is also taking home seeds of a giant hibiscus which he says will grow anywhere in New Zealand. After visiting Mr Sakata’s nursery at Yokohama, Mr Muldoon, who grows hibiscus in Auckland, described the hyrbid hibiscus, as “tremendously

spectacular.” It measures Ilin across. Mr Sakata, who bred the world’s first 100 per cent double-flowering petunia, and whose firm sells 90 per cent of the flower seeds shipped from Japan, showed Mr Muldoon the popular hybrid lily “Journey’s End.” raised by Dr J. S. Yeates, of Palmerston North, which he sells in big quantities. “He told me it’s the finest hybrid lily he’s ever seen,” Mr Muldoon said.