BOTANICAL INQUIRY

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 68, 17 September 1927, Page 11

BOTANICAL INQUIRY

GRANT EROM LONDON

(By Telegraph.)

(Special to "The Evening Post")

PALMERSTON N., This' Day. The discovery by Dr. L. Cockayne, F.R.S., of the diversity amongst New Zealand native beeches has resulted in widespread interest amongst botanical and evolutionary scientists the world over. The visit during 1925 of Dr. J. P. Lotsy, the great Dutch botanist, stimulated interest, and this authority has been able to demonstrate the significance of the facts already obtained and the need for an exhaustive study in a country so exceptionally suited as New Zealand. Before the' Science Congress, now. being concluded at Leeds, Dr. Lotsy adduced evidence of the fecundity of nature in New Zealand, for it is now recognised that not only are there a great number of species of plants which hybridise, but that.as a result there is produced an amazing multiplicity of forms. Dr. Cockayne has received a grant of £100 from the Royal Society of London for the prosecution of research in New Zealand hybrid plants. The task of carrying out the field work has been allocated to Dr. H. H. Allan, F.L.S., of the .Feilding Agricultural High School, who has charge of the botanical work of that institution.