LORD WAKEHURST VISITS MR. C. CAMERON

Forest and Bird, Issue 139, 1 February 1961, Page 6

LORD WAKEHURST VISITS MR. C. CAMERON

All members of the Society were gratified to learn a year ago that Mr. C. Cameron, sen., chairman of the Tauranga Section, had been awarded the Loder Cup. He richly merited this award, which is made annually to the person doing most in promoting interest in New Zealand native plants.

In the Bay of Plenty area Mr. Cameron’s name is a household word, for he has spent many years of his life in helping schoolchildren adults—to gain a knowledge of and a love for New Zealand’s flora. In his younger days he was well known as a boxer, but in the Tauranga-Bay of Plenty he has for many years past been known as one of New Zealand’s leading authorities on ferns. His collection of living ferns, which includes specimens from many parts of the world as well as New Zealand ones, is thought by many to be the finest in existence. His interest in our native plants has been a lifelong one (he is now over 80) and he attributes it to having been brought up as a child in beautiful surroundings. Recently Lord Wakehurst, Governor of Northern Ireland and Lord Prior of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, called on Mr. Cameron, inspected his open-air fernery, and visited the plantation that Mr. Cameron fostered at Pye’s Pa School. For Lord Wakehurst this was no casual visit, for it was his father, John Loder, Baron Beauclerk, who presented the Loder Cup to New Zealand. In congratulating Mr. Cameron on his remarkable achievements, Lord Wakehurst said, “There could be few more worthy of the honour and few who, by individual enthusiasm, have done so much for the community, who have contributed so much to the creation of interest among children, or who personally have shown so live an interest in so worthy a cause”. When speaking to the children at Pye’s Pa School, he stated that his father stayed for a few months in New Zealand in 1886 and was so impressed by the beauty of the plants growing here that on his return to England he undertook the acclimatisation there of many of our plants. New Zealand plants may now be seen growing in many parts of England.