50 My New Zealand Garden 



called New Zealand Cabbage Trees, for the unin- 

 teresting reason that someone once boiled some 

 and ate them as a vegetable. Some of them are 

 20 or 30 feet high. They look like so many sen- 

 tinels, and their large, waving, palm-like tops 

 resemble plumes. I got them all out of the 

 Bush, with the exception of one other kind 

 Draccena, Draco, or Dragon's Blood Tree. This 

 deserves special mention, as its famous ancestor 

 was killed by a violent storm in Tenerife in 1867, 

 aged three thousand years. I had an excellent 

 excuse for putting those Palms in a row, for 

 Wistarias are planted at the foot of most of them, 

 and will soon form a beautiful screen, as they 

 reach from one Palm to another. I do not allow 

 them to embrace their giant supporters, as I 

 am afraid that in time they would squeeze them 

 to death like boa constrictors. So the shoots are 

 conducted along on ropes, and as these palms 

 branch out at the top into several heads, the 

 Wistarias can always find a resting-place amongst 

 them for their highest shoots. 



It is extremely interesting work helping 

 one's self to plants and trees in the Bush so 

 much so that the first few years of our life here 

 found us in it pretty regularly, with lunch, spades, 

 trowls, hatchets, saws, and baskets ; and we soon 

 captured all the native plants we wanted. Some 

 of the Ferns are very beautiful. The Gleichenias 



