PAGEANTRY OF SPRING

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17608, 26 October 1931, Page 2

PAGEANTRY OF SPRING

BEAUTY OF CANBERRA’S TREES CANBERRA, Oct. S. Canberra's springtime beauty, which was admired at the week-end by hundreds of tourists who took advantage of the holiday to visit the Federal capital, was to-day eulogised by tlie Minister for Home Affairs, Mr. Blakeley. ... .... ‘'Canberra is now approaching her best,” said Mr. Blakeley. ‘‘The pageantry of spring' is in progress. More than .100,000 deciduous trees are now coming into prominence, making a picture so perfect and pretty that no tree lover who has time and is able to see .Canberra, .under the present joyous 'eonditiohs should stay away. ’ ’ Supporting the statement made by the Minister, ‘‘Redgum, ” who is now in Canberra, says: ‘‘l have done nothing for two whole days but wander around and enjoy the treat which every tree-lover in the Commonwealth would he glad of the opportunity of seeing at first hand. It is the 'most enjoyable spring, show of leaf tenderness that has , been displayed in any Australian centre or city. The wonder of the poplars and planes is indescribable. A few more years and the yellowy-green foliage of the spiral planes and the .silver grey, of the branchy Alba type will fill the heart ot‘. every lover of Canberra with a new gladness. ‘‘What to say of the silver birches, which are known overseas to poets and to painters as ‘the ladies of the forest,’ I do not just know. The birches arc the sweetest tree things witliin tho capital area. Most of those birches carry tjieir limbs arid foliage upright, but, here and there, one of their number has acquired the habit of drooping everything to make matters more attractive. ‘‘ln.inariy of the suburban street areas long lines of birches are lifting their slender heads upward. These ivill one day delight everyone who lives within sight of silvery trunks and stems; Chinese elms, too. are almost as dainty as the birches in their ways of working. Long lines of this tree run parallel with the roadways. All day long I find myself stopping to pay a compliment to one or other of these graceful members of the elm family from the land which has mothered so many of our best decorative and flowering trees.”