RARE PLANTS STOLEN.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 226, 24 September 1929, Page 20

RARE PLANTS STOLEN.

ONEHUNGA RESERVE

DESPOILED.

PALM WITH A HISTORY,;

"Protect your property^.was,/ the' burden of Mr. F. W. Mountjoy's exhortation, at a meeting of the • Onehunga Borough Council last night, when he spoke of the destruction wrought; at the ;new War Memorial arch in Jellicqe Park. Some'mischievous person; had got away with the flowers and shrubs recently planted- there. He thought the.council should try and bring home to all the residents a sense of their personal re- ■ sponsibility by putting up a few notice boards.

The Mayoiy Mr. E. Morton, supported the proposal/adding that one of the most valuable plants: was a rare palm given by Mr. A, C., that it had- : quite a history, "for half "'a' century ago a few seeds were given by a Maori chief to Sir George Grey, as a very^;.valuable present. The latter entrusted them-'to the late Mr. Cheese- J many'biit'heriost sight of them, and they only/discovered recently by-Mrs. Cheesemari,; when going through" her husband's .'They were given;,to; Mr. Tonkin, on the off chance of growing, afte£.;beihg kept, for; fifty years, and in epitej.of ;this. greatxlapse of time a few of thehvgrew. It'was one of these rare palms.;-t&at 'Mr.'.' Tonkin planted in the, parkland;now-it had been stolen. He hoped ithat : 'the person who removed it would;\ realise ; tlifi: error of his way, and vcstor&'it.at; bhee.