THE EMPIRE'S FLOWERS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 6, 6 July 1935, Page 24

THE EMPIRE'S FLOWERS

"Wild Flowers of. the Great Dominions of -the British Empire," published by Messrs. Macmillan, and illustrated in colour, is not merely a book of botany, but a book of travel. It is intended to give a survey by flowers of the bigger countries of the Empire to those who, not being fortunate enough to be botanists or travellers, would like to experience some of the'less-known beauties of the Empire. The book is by Lady Rockley, who as the Hon. Alicia Amherst wrote "A History of Gardening in England" in 1895 and by it gained the Freedom of the City of London and of the Worshipful Company of Gardeners.

Naturally, 'in a book of 360 pages, only a rough outline is possible. Lady Rockley has adopted the method of describing, after a short general botanical sketch of each land, the most noticeable plants of especially characteristic types of country.

Among the most attractive chapters are those on the New Zealand flora, which evidently makes a special appeal to the author. She has a good deal to say about the extraordinary freedom with which alien plants, many of them. British, have become established there and now appear like natives. In no other~country, perhaps, has the vegetation been so much altered during the past century through the agency, deliberate or casual, of man; and it is peculiarly interesting to read that no less an authority than the late Dr. L. Cockayne believed that, if farmers and grazing animals could be withdrawn from the North Island, the whole of the "permanent pasture" would "in a hundred years or less be well on the road once more towards dense rain forest." Lady Rockley discusses the palms and tree ferns! the sand-dune flora, the bush, the scrub, and the alpine flowers "of New Zealand; and the reader learns something of the shrubby veronicas, the red and yellow kowhais, the cabbage trees, the socalled beeches (Nothofagus), and other typical plants of the country:

The many beautiful illustrations are of two kinds, those showing the actual flowers themselves, and those giving some idea of the habitat.