NATIVE FLORA

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 80, 5 April 1926, Page 8

NATIVE FLORA

ITS CHARM AND BEAUTY

PLEA FOR WIDER CULTIVATION

■ In a prominent-English magazine.devoted to the interests of horticulture, the remark was recently made that New Zealand neglected its own plants, and attention was drawn to the fact that au award of merit by the Koyal Horticultural Society of England, had been made to the Melictus ramiflorus, a tree with pretty violet-blue fruits. Mr. B. C. Aston, chemist of the Department of Agriculture, states that few New Zealanders would expect such high honour for this homely plant. The niahoe, he explains, becomes quite a useful shade treo when mature, and if growth is restricted to one trunk. It does quite well on the poorest soil. In a plea for the wider cultivation of New Zealand flora, Mr. Aston Bays that the charm of our native plants is not so much due to the flowers as to the leaves and fruits and general habit of growth. The starry white of our forest, and the convolvulus of our beaches and rock face^have beauty of form bub no perfume. The massed glory of a thousand rata flowers does not hold our gaze from the form of the flower of dim outline, but from the colour. The beauty of Olearia fragrantissima is subtle and elusive. It pleases by its delicately fragrant flowers, so small as to be almost hidden from sight. It was a matter, he said, for wonder that nurserymen had not grown this rare shrub, one of the few which shed all their leaves in season in this evergreen country. The minute flowers yielded a scent which Mr. Cheeseman, the well-known Auckland botanist, had likened to that of ripe peaches.

BEAUTY IN A COMMON PLANT.

A most glaring instance of failure to see beauty in a common plant was the case of the manuka (Leptospermum scoparium). The crimson-coloured variety of this plant was now everywhere grown in gardens, while the far more beautiful though abundant whiteflowered plant was neglected. The Dunedin poet, Arthur Adams, had written one of his most beautiful lyrics on this plant. Leptospermum ereeoides was seldom planted. .It had a taller habit, of growth than L. scoparium. Some of the dwarf forms from the Hot Lakes district were beautiful and suitable for borders of rockeries. The karaka (Corynocarpus laevigata) was another tree suitable for street planting, and one should endeavour to obtain seeds from the large-leaved variety or by working therefore. A fine specimen was growing at the top of Mornington in Dr. Hunter's garden. THE BRILLIANT RATA. The giant rata (Metrosideros robusta) was well worthy of a trial, as tree and shrub. No doubt it could be raised easily from seed in the same way as the pohutakawa. It struck easily from cuttings, and flowers at a young. stage of its growth. It might-prove, a useful hedge plant, but its right place was at the back of the border or in the shrubbery. It was almost as quick in growth as the pohutukawa. Both of these species in their rapidity of growth were superior to the southern rata (M. Lucida), but this had more brilliantlycoloured flowers. In good soil' many years would pass before it would bloom, but perhaps under a treatment of root hardening it might'be induced to flower at an earlier age. One noticed at Stewart Island, where it grew on littoral rocks, it would flower when only a few feet high. Under other conditions it might take twenty years. ■ The genus Pittosperum supplied a number of beautiful shrubs which might be developed into round-headed small trees. The tarata_\vas the handsomest, and the speaker" could highly recommend the plant called P. Colensoi of the volcanic district. P. Dallii might prove of great value when more is knowii- of it. TOTARA AND BEECH. : The totara grew much quicker from cuttings than from seeds, and in this one might sometimes escape the youthful uninteresting stage of growth as in the case of the kaikomako. Cuttings taken from the mature tree started as new individuals with adult foliage. Several species of Nothopanax, N. Colensoi, N. Arboreum, and N. Edgerleyi were all suitable. The last was the handsomest, seldom seen in gardens. - Pseudo-panax classifolium (the lance-wood) formed round-headed trees in the adult state; the other species, P. Ferox, was much slower in growth. The New' Zealand ' beeches (often erroneously called "birches") belonged to the genus Nothofagus. They wore very beautiful plans at all stages of their growth, and were seldom used for street planting in the North Island. Many- of the Now Zealand trees passed through rather remarkable youthful stages, in which the form of growth was more or less different from the adult stage.' It was probable that in the youth of such a tree, having to compete for life in the shade of shrubs it had no doubt adjusted itself to such an early shaded existence. It was therefore unreasonable to think that such a plant as the rimu could be planted out without the protecticn of other shrubs in ordinary soils. To grow some trees it might be necessary to harden them gradually to an exposed position. The soil for all New Zealand plants should be deeply trenched for all grew better on a well-drained moist soil than on. one that lacked these conditions. . • ... : Though there might bo some difficulty in certain soils and climates "in growing the best of our New Zealand trees, there should be no difficulty with the shrubs, of which there were a very great number which had been grown in gardens the world over, whether as climbing shrubs such as the clematis, or the New Zealand passion flower (Te trapathaca), with beautiful foliage and orange fruits, or shrubs such as veronica ollaria, gaya, plagianthus, entelia, clianthus, senecio, codyline; and phormium; v as hedge plants,- taupata (Coprosma, Baueri), broadleaf , (Grisilinia litoralis), ngaio (Myopprum); or as rock i"ants such as-veronica, raoulia, celmisia, New Zealand ■ plants could hold their own, and are well adapted for use in this cuntry. FERNS. ; New Zealand is.perhaps more noted for its ferns than for any other form of plant life. Even the most difficult of the Gleichenia may be grown n gardens. The fern leaf is the national floral emblem of New Zealand, as the maple leaf is of Canada, and it is right that a country more leafy than floral should have as its emblem a leaf. New Zealand lads have worn it to .the sports and to tho battlefields with , honour. Let us not seek to change it.