THE DUNEDIN ORCHIDS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVIII, Issue 21, 20 November 1912, Page 38

THE DUNEDIN ORCHIDS.

NO OTHER SUCH COLLECTION IN AUSTRALASIA. IV e make this assertion upon authority (says the Dunedin “Star”), not in a spirit of boastfulness, but in order to let the public understand that the transaction by which the City Corporation became possessed of the large and rare collection of the late Mr. J. G. Davis, of Christchurch, is one upon which Councillor Todd (chairman of the Reserves Committee) and all who had anything to do with the matter, are to be heartily congratulated. Mr. Nairn, who packed these orchids, knows the Australian collections, and he says that this one cannot be matched in the Southern lands. Dunedin may consider itself lucky to obtain such a collection. Mr. Davis spent his life in getting these orchids together. In his later days he felt most anxious that they should not be broken up and distributed. Christchurch would probably have had first chance of owning the collection if it could have been preserved as a whole, but there was no suitable place there for the orchids, and that is how Dunedin got the chance, for. thanks to Mr. R. Glendining’s gift of the Winter Gardens, the beginnings of a proper orehid-house were already in existence here; and the City Council’s vote to provide the necessary extension so fully met Mr. Davis’ wishes that he readily fell in with the Dunedin proposals, and the sale was finally concluded. Mr. D. Tannoek, superintendent of reserves is now busily employed in repotting and classifying these orchids. There are at least 1.200 in the Davis collection, and to these are added abou‘ 100 that we have had in stock. Thinoble show of 1.300 orchids is set out in the new orchid-house, 60ft long, attached to the Winter Gardens.