160 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



future in localities where the care of the horticulturist has planted them, 

 and it is time to begin. And there are so many which deserve preserva- 

 tion. The well-known Ribbon-wood, or 1 Kowhai,' is a most beautiful little 

 tree, symmetrical in form, handsome in foliage, and floriferous as a Dcutzia. 

 The blooming of the exotic Catalpa is thought worthy in London of news- 

 paper mention, but an equally charming sight is the New Zealand ' Hinau ' 

 in full bloom — and who except the man who spends much time in the 

 bush has ever seen it ? Its proximity can be discovered long ere it is 

 seen by " the murmur of innumerable bees " feeding on its flowers. One 

 imagines a bush hive is near ; but, tracing the position by the hum of the 

 bees, at length a tree is reached, symmetrical in the arrangement of its 

 leaves and branches as the Walnut, whilst the whole area of its dome-like 

 top is a mound of snowy blossoms, unbroken in its wealth of delicate 

 racemes of bloom except for the little dancing dots of honey-sucking bees 

 which over the whole are clamorously busy. And where is there a more 

 strikingly beautiful and peculiar tree than the ' Rewarewa,' the Honeysuckle 

 of the settler, with its dark-green foliage quaintly formed and its large 

 red blooms; or the 'Karaka,' an enlarged and glorified Laurel, which has 

 brought from the isles of the sea the scent of the spicy lands from which 

 the Maoris brought it ? Search the world, and where is a more gorgeous 

 sight than a ' Titoki ' in full fruit ? In ordinary times a most strikingly 

 beautiful tree, of charming foliage and refreshing colour, but when 

 covered with its twin berries, red as liquid blood and black as Erebus, 

 it is long ere the eye can turn away. And there are so many more. 

 The New Zealand bush in its greens, as a whole, is inclined to be 

 sombre ; but how distinctly refreshing is the splendidly delicate foliage of 

 the ' Tanekaha,' the Celery-topped Pine, to the eye seeking relief from its 

 gaze on the darker beauties of the bush ! What an immense range of form 

 there is between the great round leaves of the ' Wharangi,' with their white 

 under-surface, and the feathery foliage of the New Zealand Cedar, the 

 ' Kawaka,' most graceful of trees where none are graceless ! The 1 Nikau ' 

 and the Mountain Palm (Cordyline indivisa), not to speak of the common 

 Cabbage-tree, are as graceful and quaint and as truly tropical in appearance 

 as the trees we associate in our minds with India's coral strand. 



Imagine a collection of purely New Zealand trees, not ranged in 

 straight rows in botanical sequence, but dispersed and intermixed with an 

 eye to effect by a skilled landscape gardener, and could anything be more 

 enthralling ? Each specimen a gem, and the whole a lovely jewel. And 

 iu creeping plants our beautiful country is beautifully and bountifully 

 rich. The red ' Rata ' vine and the snowy Clematis are known to many, but 

 where away from the primeval forest itself does one ever see that beautiful 

 climber which has blossoms like the Hardenbcrgia, but whose every floret 

 is not a little Pea but a miniature bell ? It is for a colonial horticultural 

 society to bring from their secret hiding-places these triumphs of Nature's 

 handiwork, to care for them, and if possible, by hybridisation and selec- 

 tion, improve them. And of the smaller plants are there no possibilities 

 about Solander's Orchid that its blooms of three distinct colours have 

 appealed to none for culture and improvement '? It is generally thought 

 that it is but a plant interesting to botanists; but those who have gathered 

 its racemes of flowers in the most barren lands of the colony wonder that 



