NATURE NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20898, 13 June 1931, Page 1 (Supplement)

NATURE NOTES.

FORGET-ME-NOTS. d BY J. DRUMMOND, F.L.S., F.Z.S. As England's forget-me-not is not aggressivc, and is too modest to assert itself where it is not wanted in New Zealand, merely occupying bogs and other a l wet places, it seems hardly necessary for s< Dr. F. W. Hilgendorf to include it in his " Weeds of New Zealand." It has no ambition to usurp pasture lands, although sometimes it creeps hesitatingly and apologetically into a suburban garden, s looking out at visitors through its blue Anglo-Saxon eyes, typical of the imperial 0 race on whom it was a lord-in-waiting h when New Zealand was settled. " Ouida," in one of her novels, writes of a man * with a dangerous glitter in his forget-me-not-hued eyes. Blue eyes may glit- t ter dangerously, but they cease to be c forget-me-not eyes. The authoress, whose, books had a great vogue in mid-Victorian t days, could have found a more apt simi- s litude. ] In these days, pretty legends associated v with flowers are not cherished. The blueeyed forget-me-not to almost every New . Zealander is nothing more than the yellow Jj primrose on the river's brim was to Peter a Bell. In Devonshire it is still the heaven's blue, but even in England probably t nobody now believes that it grows for i happy lovers. Not many years ago, £ people in England who wished to find a place in the thoughts of distant per- J sons pulled a sprig of forget-me-not and j expressed their wish to it, in the belief that the wish would be gratified. r c In earlier English days a species of 1 forget-me-not, allied to the common species and called scorpion-grass, was " verie < goode against the bite of scorpions." J Boiled in wine, it was a cure for the bites of " adders, snakes and such-like . venomous beasts." In the fifteenth cen- ; tury there was a general belief that those ■ who wore a sprig of forget-me-not would not be forgotten by their lovers. A 1 work published in England ninety years • ago stated that " this royal adventurer, Lancaster, appears to have been the person who gave to the Myosotis, or forget-me-not, its emblematic and poetical meaning." As a matter of fact, the forget-met-not has the whole of Europe for its home, and its English name is a translation of its name in France, where, apparently, it was the emblem of friendship before it received this distinction iri England. Coming from sentiment to natural history, the common forget-me-not is Myosotis palustris. Five other species, all blue-eyed, have come to New Zealand with it. One of these, Myosotis arvensis, is the fabled scorpion-grass. Myosotis repens, the creeping water scorpion-grass, has not been recorded in the Dominion. The scorpion-grass seems to have given the group its common name, Myosotis, from two Greek words, " mys," a mouse, and " ous," an ear. The leaves of this species are clothed with long coarse hairs, which make them look like a mouse's ear. New Zealan'd has more interest in the forget-me-nots than is generally known. They are better represented in the native plants of New Zealand than in the native plants of any other country. While the Old Country has five or six species, New Zealand has no fewer than about thirty, more than half the total known from all parts of the world. Their great development here, contrasting with their fewness in Australia and South America, is one of the most remarkable features of New Zealand's plant life. Against this is the absence of all poetry and romance from New Zealand's forget-me-nots. Many of them display white, purple or yellow, instead of the famous forget-me-not blue. Still, some sentiment is associated with New Zealand's forget-me-nots. Myosotis Forsterii, which has white flowers, arranged in long, slender inflorescences, and favours the sides of streams in hilly and wooded districts, or in open swampy forests, was gathered by Sir Joseph Banks and Dr. Solander, famous botanists who accompanied Captain Cook on hi 6 first voyage, and who, doubtless, were surprised to find a forget-me-not without the blue flowers they knew well at Home. This species has been dedicated to another botanist, John Reinhold Forster, who, with his son, George Forster, accompanied Captain Cook on his second voyage. Solander saw it at Tolaga Bay and in a few other places. When resident botanists began to collect New Zealand plants it was found that the species was fairly well distributed from the Bay of Islands south to the west of Otago. A forget-me-not with large, pure-white flowers, Myosotis explanata, is an alpinist, living in the Southern Alps at altitudes from three thousand to four thousand five hundred feet, snuggling into sheltered nooks and corners at the bases of masses of rock or of rock-pillars. It was originally discovered fifty years ago by the late Mr. T. F. Cheeseman on mountains overlooking Arthur's Faas. Later, it was gathered on Walker's Pass, adjacent to Arthur's Pass. It has been recorded in no other place. Many flowered clusters , of bright, yellow blooms, displayed in December and January, are shown on hillsides by Myosotis Monroii, discovered by Sir David Monro seventy-seven years , ago on Dun Mountain, Nelson, and , gathered later by Air. Cheeseman on Red Hills, Wnirau ' Valley. Largo white ; flowers, half an inch long and half an inch wide, produced by Mj'osotis amabilis, • have been seen by few people. They , bloom in January on the summit of . Mount Hikurangi, East Cape district, at [ a height of five thousand feet. The discovery of one of the most beau- 1 : tiful forget-me-nots in the whole world, • Myosotis concinna, fell to the lot of Mr. Cheeseman forty-nine years ago. Ascending the northern slopes of Mount Owen, a 5 broad and massive many-peaked mountain ' between the Buller River and the head- ' waters of the Wangapeka River, West Coast, South Island, he reached open elevated rocky country that surrounds the higher peaks. There, at an altitude of r from three thousand five hundred feet to five thousand feet, lie saw this forget-me-not, plentiful and conspicuous, its bright yellow —golden—flowers showing in every nook and corner and filling the mountain 5 air with their fragrance. The beauty E and fragrance of the flowers suggested to 1 him the cultivation of this New ZeaE land forget-me-not in gardens, but no s effort has been made to induce the species • to spread its sweet influence to the low--3 lands. ; On the other hand, the noble giant f forget-me-not of the Chatham Islands, known as the Chatham Islands' lily, Myo--3 sotidiuin nobile, with dark green leaves f from six inches to fifteen inches in dia- , meter, and bright blue flowers, has been s established in New Zealand gardens. A . variety with while flowers is valued more highly than the blue-flowored species.