COULD FIND NO “SILVER FERN"

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 3, 5 January 1939, Page 10

COULD FIND NO “SILVER FERN"

WELSHMAN DISAPPOINTED WANTED ONE FOR HIS GARDEN I Per Press Association.] WELLINGTON, Jan. 4. Enthusiasm for Rugby football but ignorance about New Zealand plant life seem to have been the chief characteristics of a Welsh fireman from one of the overseas cargo ships which visited Wellington. One afternoon while looking for a silver fern he was met by a New Zealand lad on the slopes of Mount Victoria. The Welshman explained that both he and his brother were keen followers of Rugby, and as they had seen touring New Zealand teams in action on several occasions they would like to have the emblem of the All Blacks, the silver fern, for the garden surrounding their home in Wales. Two games he remembered vividly were those played by the victorious 1924 learn captained by Cliff Porter in Swansea, and by the 1935 team under Jack Manchester, also in Swansea. It was the Welshman’s first visit to the Dominion and he wanted the plant not only because of its associations with the All Blacks, but also because he had been making it a practice, in his travels round the world, to obtain a plant characteristic of each country he visited. He had been told that silver ferns grew wild on New Zealand hills, and thought it would be easy to find one. The New Zealander said he would be unable to find any of the ferns he wanted on Mount Victoria. Some days later, however, he remembered a number of old disused quarries where it was possible that the ferns might be growing, and went in search of his Welsh acquaintance. Together that evening they scoured the likely areas, but without success. Then the New Zealander explained that the ferns were only silver on one side. “Oh,” said the Welshman in a disappointed voice. “I thought they were silver on both sides just like the ones on the All Blacks’ jerseys.”