DONALD PETRIE.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18479, 5 September 1925, Page 11

DONALD PETRIE.

AN APPRECIATION. (Contributed.) Mi- Petrie's death makes a tremendous gap. l>uring tho last twenty yearg all the important work which has been done in the collection aim identification of native plants and tho description of now species and varieties has been carried out by throe men: T. F. Cheese mart; D. Petrie; and Dr. L. Cockayne. Of these, Dr. Cockayne alone remains. Fetrie's own chosen field was the Alps of Otago. For many years his duties as Inspector of Schools took him into every township of the Province, and he sedulously and energetically took adrnntage of his unrivalled opportunities to pursue his beloved work, even to the scandalising of tli\> unco guid folk of the Scottish race by botanising on the Sabbaths. His memory is cherished still by many of tho older generation among the lonesome glens and deserted mining camps of the South. But he was not entirely confined to these limits. During his most active ye;nrs be visited the Mt. Cook district, hotanise.l with Dr. Cockayne in the hack country of Canterbury, penetrated into the Marlborough mountains siy way of the Awatere, visited the mountain groups of the North Island, especially the Tararuas, with Mr B. C. Aston, and the Volcanic Plateau. lii all these places he made interesting discoveries, and added enormously to his great collections. Botanic Problems. On his retirement, and settlement in Auckland he was able to devote himself more completely to his work of classifying tho more' difficult species, attending to and improving his herbarium, describing new species and varieties, corresponding with numerous students and scholars in Europe - and in New Zealand on botanical problenjs, nnd, above, all, helping others in the identification and description of new discoveries. It is here that he will be so greatly missed. With his own vast collections at his back and those of Mr Cheeseman within easy reach at the Museum, lio was able to pronounce with authority upon any plant submitted to him, and as lie had abundant leisure and love for the subject, he was" always exceedingly prompt with his replies. From time to time he made botanical excursions and brought back rich spoils for preservation a work iri which he vvas particularly skilled and successful. I'ufaining bis great strength to an advanced age, he even ventured into tho Awatere district and did some Alpine collecting only three years ago, but the greatest part of his time was devoted to the Auckland district, whose flora he came to,know as thoroughly a,5 that of his old held —the Otago Alps. He continued, to make beautiful specimens of the characteristic plants of the province until ye.rv recent years, and the Canterbury Museum has reason to be most grateful to him for his liberal gifts of very many beautiful and rare things. His very great services to his own chosen branch of the great subject aro i attested by tjie vejv numerous plants which bear his name, by the frequent occurrence of his name in the records of particular sj>ecicß, and by tho long series of his contributions to the Transactions of the Philosophical Institute—records of rare plants in new stations and descriptions of numbers of new species and varieties. These appeared annually, and the Transactions will hardly seem the same without them. The Grasses. Mr PetriiO was interested in all flowering points and ferns, but during his most active period he probably devoted more attention to the Grasses than to any other special company with the Hon. G. M. Thomson he made great collections and carried out most important worlv both in Otago and Canterbury in this group. He also knew particularly well the ( yperaceaus plants, which wo closely akin to the Grasses; he was especially rich and wellinformed in Cares and Uncinia. Among the higher flowering plants ho did excellent. work in Veronica, Pimelea, Cel' misia, and M.vosotis, perhaps the most important and difficult of all in Myosofcis. 'He was at wo>ic at the very la«t upon Cardamine, a nptoriptujly difficult genus. It was his special work to collate great numbers of specimens of siw>h difficult fortius from different districts, to coniT pare a,nd examine these with minute care, and then to segregate new specipa or rearrange the olcf in the most satisfactory way possible. N.-iturally, his results were not quite always acceptable to <i|j men, but even thpsp who wer« compelled to differ from hint would readily acknowledge that his conclusions were invr.riably based upon careful. faithful and honest work.

Perhaps he was sometimes too quiok to recogn:se as new to science some , plant which was new to him, or too apt to publish a novelty upon insufficient evidence, without waiting fee long series of specimens from other places to support, him. This is no doubt a fault, hut too often it liajh pens that tfte novelty has jjeen found 111 some rarely visited spot, or some dangerous alpine- locality, and that many years may elanse before it is ever seen again. His publication of TTelichrysuni, Grahami, gathered by Peter Graham in his hazardous traverse of the Sebast.opol cliffs with Miss Dufaur, may be cited as an example. Old-Fashioned Botanist. , . Mr I'etiie was an "old-fashioned" botanist; in this vruy: he was bent upon one thing and ope only in the since; he was a fipid-botaiiist, a collector and systeinatist. tie cared only for the individual species; its at- ! Unities, its place in ltg genus g.nd order; its distribution. He studied the characters of tho plant from this sole point of view—how is it distinguished from other species ? Thus, any rare or exceptional or remarkable variety attracted him strongly, and like iiiiy other good field-naturaiist ancl oollector, he would go through fire and water and submit to incredible fatigues and hardships in order to get some particular plant into his hand. But the modern way of regarding plants as members of communities or associations, leading a common Life and responding similarly to common stresses and advantages, was quite distasteful to him. Nor had he nnv deep interest in problems of origins j in "mutation,'' for instance, or hybridisation as the sole species-maker. Ho cared little or nothing for ecology and its problems. All. these things he willingly left to others, feeling, one supposes, that his own field was big enough, and thai in that field nothing great could be accomplished except by single-hearted devotion to tho one main aim. And surely there is much to be said for his point of view. Tho state of hotanjcgj knowledge in Xew Zealand is such that for many years to come the collection, preservation, nnd svstematic arrangement of the native, and especially the Alpine, plants should engage the attention of a great and increasing body of worker?, without whose preliminary labours, W surveying and mapping out the field, the laboratory is eompaxJttively useless. Mr Petrie bitterly lamented the fact that the University has as yet done little or nothing in this direction. All the most important workers in the field, such as Cheeseman, Kirk, Cockayne, Carse, Aston, Poppelwell, Mcilahon, Laing, Speden,

(Continued at foot of next caiman.)

end Petrie himself, being outside the University altogether. A Fine Herbarium. The splendid herbarium which was built up by so many years' hard, faithful, and loving work was given by >lr Petrie to lie Dominion Museum, Wellington, but upon the condition that it must be worthily and safely housed- He had during the last iow years, after making this 4ecjsiop, d<* voted himself to the great work of "poisoning" his specimens (to preserve tltem from insect attack), labelling them and arranging them according to the latest scientific plan for their final resting-place. Let us hope that the people of Wellington aro properly grateful for this great gift and the worthy shripe may soon be forth-' coming 1