NATIONAL FLOWER.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 252, 21 September 1933, Page 6

NATIONAL FLOWER.

LORD BLEDISLOE’S SUGGESTION. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Sept. 20. The possibility of a New Zealand flower being brought by cultivation to the magnificence and popularity of the daffodil was referred to by Lord Bledisloe in opening the Hutt Vajley Horticultural’s Society’s Spring Sfiow to-day. “As I look down on this exhibition of daffodils,” said His Excellency, “I cannot help wondering at their wealth and the perfection in size and colour to which wliat once was a-simple bloom in the English meadows has now bean raised. Time was when the daffodil was regarded as hardly worth a place in the garden, and there may be a humble yet beautiful flower native to your country which is to be found on the hillsides or in the bush, and which, by similar breeding and selection, may be advanced to a standard equal to the magnificence and popularity of the daffodil. “I would suggest to enterprising nurserymen that there may be New Zealand plants worthy of greater scientific _ development than they have yet received, and that the day may come when we shall find not only in New Zealand gardens, but also in English gardens, a large number of your own native plants.”