BLOOMLESS RATAS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 28, 3 February 1939, Page 5

BLOOMLESS RATAS

STUDY OF NATIVE PLANTS

MUSEUM EXHIBITION

It is known that a large number of the ratas (Metrosideros robusta) in and about Wellington, in the bush and in gardens, have not bloomed this year. A report now comes from Stewart Island that the southern rata <M. umbellata) has not flowered this season, and those people who interest themselves in the native vegetation seem to think that these ratas usually in flower about Christmas, missed flowering this year. Why? Perhaps a cold December.

Much more light would be thrown on the flowering behaviour —and, indeed, on the general behaviour —of indigenous trees and shrubs if summertime trippers, and the population generally, would take a more informed interest in the native vegetation of their native land. At the rata's flowering time thousands of people will motor for miles through bush without noting whether or. not the rata is flowering. Some springtime trippers do not even notice the beautiful clematis. But if they took an informed interest in the bush they could bear witness as to whether there has or has not been such a happening as a failure to flower, as to whether it is merely a local failure or a widespread failure.

Now, interest in native plants naturally increases as knowledge of them is widened; and it is with the object of giving visitors to the Dominion Museum an opportunity of seeing a representative selection of native plants that the Museum authorities have instituted annual exhibitions of native plants in the Museum building. In this effort to spread knowledge and so arouse and maintain interest in the indigenous flora, the Museum staff has the assistance of the Native Plant Preservation Society, whose members collect living plants from the seashore to the mountain-tops for public exhibition and for distribution to public gardens. The society will exhibit many kinds of growing plants in the forthcoming Museum exhibition.

Arrangements for this year's exhibition are now well under way, and plants are arriving from all parts of the Dominion. Plants growing in pots or boxes are favoured as the desire is to show the species as they appear in nature. It is hoped that residents of Wellington -will help by exhibiting any native plants, either potted or cut, which they may happen to have. In this way the benefit of their experience and the pleasure they derive from growing native plants can be shared by others. The exhibition will be officially opened at the Museum on February 15 and will continue until the 19th.