52 LITERATURE. 



THE WASTE OF WARATAHS. 



j^LOWER-LOVERS on every side are expressing regret for the wholesale 

 fV destruction of Waratahs recorded last week. Eor some time past 

 people in the mountains have been writing of the wonderful crop of 

 Waratahs which have covered the bush with their glowing flowers this year. 

 Picked in moderation, they would have beautified the district for weeks, and 

 it certainly does not seem right or just that a whole countryside should be 

 depleted of its beauty in order to decorate one baUroom for a few hours. 



But, sad as it is to rob the bush in this way, the worst of such a wholesale 

 gathering is that it will affect the flower crop for several seasons to come. For, 

 where thousands of blooms are plucked, it is inevitable that there should be much 

 breaking of wood, and the destruction of many young shoots. At the recent 

 wild flower show some people expressed disappointment that there was not a 

 greater mass of blossoms. But that was just the point on which the committee 

 rejoiced, for to have great masses of one flower means a certain amount of damage 

 to the species, except in the case of plants which grow in large flower clumps, 

 such as wattle. The fact that the exhibits at the flower show had been gathered 

 with such care and moderation was, to flower lovers, one of the most pleasing 

 and encouraging features of the whole exhibition ; and naturalists hoped that 

 it was a s'gn that the general public were beginning to really understand some- 

 thing of the treatment of the bush flowers. This matter of the Waratahs has 

 lather shattered these hopes, for there can be little doubt the thing was done 

 in ignorance of the results, rather than in sheer callousness; and it seems that 

 the public in general, and the florists in particular, have still a great deal to learn 

 in this direction. There is a certain amount of satisfaction in the knowledge 

 that our once-despised native flowers are now considered to grace the highest 

 house in the land ; but if such appreciation is going to mean thoughtless waste 

 and wholesale destruction, we would rather see the bush blooms ignored by all 

 but their true lovers — the naturalists and the poets. 



Svdnev Morniiiii, Herald, November 13, 1912. 



