OTIRA VALLEY IS ENCHANTING

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXIII, 1 May 1926, Page 11

OTIRA VALLEY IS ENCHANTING

BEAUTIES SURPRISE SOUTHERN BOTANIST. The collection of> Veronicas in the Christchurch Public Gardens has impressed Mr W. L. Darton, of Lawrence, Otago, who is .spending several weeks in that city, and who has taken a deep interest in the native section of the gardens. Mr Darton is entitled to expressman opinion on this subject, as he, with Mr H. Ilat't, has the largest Veronica garden in the world. Messrs Darton and Hart have found a pleasant hobby in growing and studying these handsome /lowering «hru;bs. Veronicas are more abundant in New Zealand than in any other country. They are fairly abundant in the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, but in the tropics they are rare, or almost absent. In New Zealand, they are the largest genus of native dowering plants. Visitors to the Christchurch Public Gardens admire their singularly beautiful forms and their pink,, lilac blue, and reddish-purple, flowers, ranging from pure white to in a long, broad bed between the rose-garden and the new native section. Messrs Darton and Hart now are turning their attention to the native Celmisias. These, on account of their daisy-like dowers and their habitats, are popularly known as mountain daisies, although they do not ibolcing to the daisy family. Speaking of the Celmisias in the gardens, Mr Darton said that a start had been made to bring them all together, a systematic arrangement which, doubtless, would be extended to the Veronicas and other native plants. Mr Darton, Mr .1. Young, curator of the gardens, and Mr J. M. Baxter, another enthusiast in native plants, left Christchurch at 6.30 a.m. on Wednesday for Lake Lyndon, up in the mountains, to collect Celmisias for additions to the collection in the gardens. They will return the same day. A suggestion has been made by Mr Darton that some young New Zealander, with the love of native plants in his heart, should be given facilities for studying tire Veronicas, which offer a wide deld for botanical research. The Otira Valley, recently visited by Mr Darton, gave him one of the surprises of his life. He had no idea, he said, that it was so accessible or that it possessed such enchantment for a botanist.