TREES FOR WAR MUSEUM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20331, 12 August 1929, Page 10

TREES FOR WAR MUSEUM.

OFFER OF NATIVE PLANTS. SPECIAL LOCAL SIGNIFICANCE. An offer to contribute native trees suitablo for planting at the War Memorial. Museum, in preference to imported exotics, has been made to the chairman of the Auckland City Council's Parks Committee, by Mr. W. A. Beattie, solicitor, who sent a letter containing his offer to the committee on Saturday. Sir. Beattie states lie is willing to contribute himself and obtain from friends a sufficient sum to purchase suitable specimens and to obtain the advice of Mr. V. C. Davies, of New Plymouth, who is recognised as ono of the leading collectors and authorities on native plants in the Dominion. "There are many trot* in New Zealand which have gained a special significance from local legend, and are eminently suited from this traditional point of view as well as from the point of view of their own ornamental merit, for the purposes of this war memorial," states the letter. "The Prime Minister of the late Government, speaking of Sir James Carroll's death, used the Maori phrase, now a classical phrase in New Zealand, "A great totara has fallen.' These beautiful trees, properly tended, would .therefore be most fitting and would convey to the New Zealander more, than mere words can express. Exotics have no such significance. "Tho tainui, a rapid-growing tree, said by tradition to have sprung from the timbers of the famous canoe, is the traditional emblem of adventure, and fearless.ness in braving the dangers of the elements. It represents in a very real sense, with its golden blossoms, the prize of bravery. The torch which has been lit throughput the world by tho men who served New Zealand cannot be better represented than by tho glorious pohutukawa or the climbing rata, and rheir goal, peace, than by the masses of white blossom on the hohena, the starry clematis or the wliau. The grief of relatives and friends can find its counterpart in the pendulous branchlets of tho rimu, the sombre beauty of the pahautea or the shapely young kahikatea. "Thcso are only suggestions; the whole could be arranged in a manner which would givo tho most fitting expression to the emotional feelings of those who understand that this building and its grounds are no stereotyped form cf memorial, such as ono might sec in a hundred countries, but a memorial built by Now Zealamlcrs for tho glorious dead. Could tho dead but bo consulted, would they ask that they should bo remembered by emblems of foreign lauds, or by emblems of the land of tl\oii- birth; bv trees of Japan and Greece, or by trees of New Zealand, one single branch of which they would have wept with joy to seo while tlioy were over there suffering for New Zealand ?

"New Zealand is building 1 a tradition," concludes Mr. Beattio. "There is no reason to go abroad for the materials. If the trees are planted, it is to bo hoped that they will be tended according to the most modern scientific means of silviculture and not just stuck in to grow in I heir own way. Ornamental trees of any land roquiro attention."