FERNERY IN GARDENS

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 239, 4 July 1940, Page 7

FERNERY IN GARDENS

Reorganization Nearing Completion

MAGNIFICENT KING-FERNS

The reorganization of the fernery in the Wellington Botanical Gardens is approaching completion, and the magnificent king-ferns (Marattia ftaxinea, the para of the Maori), which have been one of its chief treasures, will now be seen to better advantage. Gradually they will be supported by other native ferns, and it is planned to make the fernery representative of New Zealand’s indigenous fern life. To make room, the former rock-con-tent of the fernery has been reduced. The fernery can spare these rocks, which were gathered on the Island Bay beach 30 years ago. Some huge and handsome sea-worn rocks will now be seen in other parts of the gardens; while the fernery, which has plenty of rocks left, will rejoice in walls of “punga” (tree-fern trunks) salvaged from the Exhibition and erected like Maori palisades. The lath roof of the fernery remains in good order, and the large live treeferns that were poking through it have found suitable outdoor sites by the .stream. Already a new outdoor rockery has been created witli the help of rocks spared from the fernery. The clearance reveals a date inscribed on the basic concrete work of the fernery. The date is May 19, 1909. Any fern-grower who has a surplus of the rarer New Zealand ferns has now an opportunity, by giving his surplus, of improving the collection at the Botanical Gardens fernery, and of thus contributing to the growing interest in New Zealand ferns and in the indigenous plant life of tins country. Wellington city is the cross-roads point of the Dominion, and as the Botanical Gardens and the Otari Open Air Museum tire special points of interest to travellers and to visitors, it is hoped that this appeal for ferns will have a range not only in Wellington but beyond, and specially in such provincial centres as New Plymouth and Wanganui, where there are very fine private collections of ferns.