VALUABLE GIFT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19434, 21 October 1925, Page 13

VALUABLE GIFT

TO DOMINION MUSEUM / FINE HERBARIUM MADE AVAILABLE to "Chronicle.”) WELLINGTON, Oct. 19. The late Dr. Petrie, who was for some time injector of schools in Otago, but retired and went to live in Auckland, left his herbarium to the Dominion Museum some years ago. Mr Oliver, of the Museum staff, has gone to Auckland to make - arrangements for bringing the herbarium to Wellington, and will be in charge of it when it is set out here. The late Dr. Petrie mtide the first botanical explorations in Stewart Island and the West Coast Sounds district, with the Hon. G. M. Thomson, M.L.C., and since that day collected from practically every part of New Zealand. He was also with the late Mr Cheesm&n (for many years Curator of the Auckland Museum), one of the two references to whom other botanists sent specimens for identification. The Dominion Museum authorities have taken the top floor of the Dominion Farmers’ Institute and fitted it up to house this herbarium, and also the Museum’s present collection, which suffers so badly from damp and mould in the present building, will also be housed on this floor of the Dominion Farmers’ Institute. Both the plant and insect collections will be accessible to the public there bnd there will be much more favourable conditions for keeping and seeing them, and the herbarium will be available for students to inspect and consult.

Dr. Petjie’s is a wonderfully complete collection, so that with it and the previous collections made by Sir James Hector, and others and the Colenso Herbarium, which the Museum has on deposit, the exhibits will be representative of practically every species of plant in New Zealand.