The Scilly Islands Pohutukawa

Forest and Bird, Issue 105, 1 August 1952, Page 12

The Scilly Islands Pohutukawa

reading the article by R. B. Godward in our last issue, Mr. William Hammond, Thorton’s Bay, writes : “An early resident of Thames, Mr. J. W. Hall, chemist, was a great lover of our New Zealand flora and fauna. He had some acres of native bush to which he was constantly adding. Podocarpus hallii was named after him. He was keenly interested in raising the native plants from seed. “Many years ago he told me how he had forwarded seed of the pohutukawa to General Dorrien Smith of the Scilly Islands and how years afterwards he had received word that plants grown from the seed he had forwarded were in full bloom. “Mr. Hall said that he had also sent seed to the Riviera and other places on the Mediterranean but had not heard whether the attempt to establish the pohutukawa in that locality had been successful.”

A reference in Kirk’s “The Forest Flora of New Zealand” shows that Hall probably commenced his plantation in the early 187'0’s. General Dorrien Smith, who was in New Zealand in 1909 and at that time probably in his 50’s or 60’s, would be a descendant of the Augustus Smith mentioned in Mr. Godward’s article.