DOMINION’S FLORA

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 6441, 22 January 1924, Page 7

DOMINION’S FLORA

A VISITING BOTANIST IMPRESSED WITH VARIETY FORESTRY DEPARTMENT’S WORK “You are very far in advance of Canada in respect of your botanic gardens,” said Professor R. B. Thomson, professor of botany at the University of Toronto, Canada, when asked for his impressions of New Zealand. The professor is making a world tour investigating matters of afforestation and botany. “I have had an eye-opener in townplanning,” he said, “and have been delighted, during my month’s stay here, with the wide streets in your cities and the large, amount of treeplanting that is going on in all the open spaces and reserves. Our streets are much more narrower and often not nearly as much evidence can be found, of planning. I was specially delighted by the large numW of botanical gardens in all the towns.” While in' New Zealand Professor Thomson has visited the Titirangi ranges, the thermal springs district, Taupo, the National Park, Mount Egmont, arid Canterbury, crossing Arthur’s Pass and passing through Otira Gorge.

Referring to the National Park, he said it was a most magnificent reserve and a splendid national asset, which could be kept in its natural condition for all time. The great variety and abundance of plant life struck him very forcibly. “Do you approve the introduction of heather,”

“In Canada,” came the reply, “we should not like to have introduced into our natural parks anything that might tend to destroy ' the natural flora. We prefer to keep such places quite typical of the country and exploit the possibilities of our own natural flora. INTRODUCTION OP EXOTICS “But, of course there is a very great place for the introduction of foreign plants into a country, when their possibilities have been discovered under the new conditions. Therefore, the United States has established a bureau for the systematic introduction of plants in such a way that they are kept under control until the tests been completed. A The bureaus at Washington has added untold wealth to the country, and the plants are kept in specially selected places, some towards the north and others towards the south, according to the varying climatic conditions required. The Forestry Department in New Zealand is moving in that direction by trying out the redwood, from California, and the Douglas fir from the Canadian Rockies. At Rotorua, where these tests are being made, they are doing magnificent work in re-forest-ing the mountain sides.

“I very much appreciate the courtesy of the Forestry Department,” said the Professor. “Through it I have been enabled to have Dr. L. Cockayne, F.L.S., accompanying, me in my travels in the South. Dr. Cockayne is one of the most distinguished authorities in the world in that branch of botany that has received his attention, the ecology of plants. “In the company of the Doctor I passed through Arthur’s Gorge, and found it to be a perfect garden of native wild flowers. The, rain, with the southern rata in full bloom on the westward slopes, gave the whole forest covering the mountainside the appearance of a gorgeous mass of red. “I went from there to Taranaki, and I am delighted to hear that it is proposed to make a botanical survey of the Egmont National Parft,” continued the Professor. STRANGE HABITS OF EPIPHYTES “An outstanding feature of the forest round Mount Egmont—and one common to rain forests in general—is the epiphytism, the way in which one tree replaces another by growing upon it. the rata, in particular, which preys upon the rimu, eventually killing it. The epipdiytes use other trees to establish themselves arid in that way the conifers' (including such valuable forest trens as the rimu) are gradually being replaced by some of the broad-leafed, such as the rata.” Explaining the process, Professor Thomson said that where there was heavy rainfall, as upon the slopes of Egmont, moss grew’ freely <in the branches and the trunks of tb,e "trees. Rata seeds could be deposited!, by the action of wind or birds, on moss-cov-ered branches, where they could germinate and develop . in the ljght. Roots rapidly found their ■vvay down to the ground by way of t'he mossgrown trunk, and eventua illy those

roots would coalesce, forming a new tree about the original one and killing it. This was how the hollow trunks of the big rata trees were formed. He pointed out that, while one variety of rata was an epiphyte, growing as described, another was a climber, creeping from the ground up the trunk of an established tree.

The work in progress in the botanical gardens in Taranaki showed that a tremendous amount was being done to demonstrate the, possibilities of native flora. They have a very large number of type specimens growing in the nursery gardens as well as those for sale; apd that is the right kind of botanic garden, because you can see what the fully developed plant is like. COMPARISON WITH CANADIAN FLORA “The big difference between this country and Canada, so far as forest trees are concerned, is that all of the Canadian evergreen trees have needle leaves! whereas here nearly all the trees are evergreen, whether Having broad or needle shaped leaves. Only the needle shaped leaves can withstand the rigours of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, where the winds and sleet and snow play a great part in the destruction of the leaves.

“The evergreeh trees of Canada are conical in shape, like the Norfolk pine here, and that permits one branch to lend support to another when mantled in snow. The broadleaved trees shed their leaves on the approach of winter, and are naked for at least six months of the year. “Nearly everything in the smaller flora is different in New Zealand, as in the case of tree flora; and very few forms here are found in Canada, except some weeds that are cosmopolitan.” Professor Thomson said that his idea in coming to this Dominion was to see the type of flora here that was more primitive than could be found in the Northern Hemisphere. This idea was probably due to the fact that* we had primitive types of mammals, but actual investigation had impressed him with the opinion that the flora had undergone as much specialisation in the Dominion as elsewhere, but in different ways relating to the different conditions under which it was grown.