HER NATIONAL FLOWER.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1373, 26 February 1912, Page 9

HER NATIONAL FLOWER.

This past fortnight there lave teen noticeable in England the first considerable arrivals of wattle blossom from the South of l'Vance (says the English correspondent of the "Telegraph" of January 12). One has not noticed wattle on sale in the London streets—tho first sign nowadays, that comes to the English that the dayi'-avo •Irtigthenuiir mid spring is ahead. But this fortnight the wattle has reached the private houses and the iiofels —one sees' sprigs of it on tho dinnertables and mantelpieces. It is growing a most popular flower, but no one hew seems to have heard that it was Australian. Thty de not * T en know of it by the name ot' "wattlo" -they know it only as mimosa. They have mostly never heard of a wattlo flower. Vet those who appear to J now .-ay that tho supplies which pour inli Riglaml are entirely the Australian watfclo transplanted to the South of T'ranco and imported to England from there. Everyone in England has heard of the Canadian maple; and, indeed, everyone who has passed through Canada in September or October knows that the maple deserves all tho fame it I'.cts. But Australia seems to have gone very near to lose her connection with the wattle altogether. It was actually embroidered on the Coronation robes «s the emblem of South Africa. The South Africaus, it is true, have made considerable u« of the wattle. They imported quantities from Australia many years ago, and carefully encouraged them, until wattlo bark came to be. a considerable export {rom Soutli Africa. It is not as unimportant as it may seem that Australians should assert their right to such beauties as their country unquestionably owns A good deal lias neon heard from those accustomed to the great viricty of the Enropoan nnd American woodlands as to the monotony of the Australian evergreens, and the connection in people's mini* of this favourite mimosa with Australia would do a good deal to counteract that impression. Ihe knowledge that the mimosa is Australian can hardly be .spread by a few isolated newspaper articks. But if it became a/ccoguir.ed Australian emblem, or if the Agents-Gonwal here would till their windows with wittlfc blossom for a few days in the year at the time when it is plentiful, Hip connection of it with Australia might iiEwnne established.