Botanist’s paradise

Press, 6 February 1982, Page 13

Botanist’s paradise

Britain's famous television botanist, David Bellamy, plans to be out in the Waitakeres during every spate moment of a forthcoming visit to New Zealand. He will be studying “one of the most exciting plants in the world and one which I have only ever seen once before.”

Invited to Auckland to take part in the official opening of extensions to the city's Botanic Gardens on February 23, David Bellamy says: “Everywhere you look in New Zealand there is something to make the average botanist go bananas." His interest in New Zealand was sparked more than 40 years ago. “I used to go to New Zealand House where my uncle Nem (Mr Eddie Broadbridge) was secretary to the High Commissioner. “He used to tell me how the great kauris were chopped down and all the other stories about the variety of flora. “He must have been to New Zealand and the first

stamp in my collection was a famous one depicting the biggest kauri still growing.” About 40 years later, David Bellamy was to see the tree in Waipoua forest and film it for “Land of Opportunity” a segment in a 8.8. C. television series called “Botanic Man,” made three years ago. Bellamy, who is aged 49, began his television career when asked by the 8.8. C. to comment on the risk of pollution at the time of the Torrey Canyon disaster in 1969.

He was practically the only scientist then engaged on research into ocean pollution and headed a team at the University of Durham.

“I have been on television virtually ever since and enjoy it immensely otherwise I wouldn’t do it,” he said.

"I have made Bellamy’s View, Bellamy’s Britain, Bellamy’s Europe, Bellamy on Botany ... 270 programmes in all.”

Due to arrive in Auckland on February 20 for a 10-day visit with his wife, the tele-

vision botanist says that New Zealand flora is almost totally unique because it is a mixture of elements found nowhere else in the world. In the Waitakeres he will look at the tmesipteris, “one of the rarer plants of this earth which there grows hanging on the trunks of tree ferns.

“It is thought to be the descendant of one of the earliest land plants there ever was.

“It is one of the classic things one learns about in a botany degree, and never imagines he will actually see it growing.” New Zealand was a very special place for botanists as it had been an island country for an immense length of time.

David Bellamy is being invited to New Zealand by the Auckland Regional Authority but “all the time they don’t expect me to sing for my supper, I’ll be out looking at the plants. “And I would like to take

my wife to see the kauri forest."

He is enthusiastic about the gardens opening in Auckland. "It is the most important thing that could be happening. The world has just begun to realise that its future depends on plants, and there are not all the number of new botanic gardens opening.

so it is very exciting.” Whi)e in Auckland, the botanist, who holds an honorary Professorship of adult and continuing education at Durham University will give a lecture entitled, 1 “Plant Yourself a Future."

From

KEN COATES

in London