PLANT SANCTUARIES

Hokitika Guardian, 1 May 1925, Page 3

PLANT SANCTUARIES

PKKSKUYI.Nu NATIVE FLORA. (SYDNEY. April Outlying piirts of Sydney, which till recent veal's have lieeii sylvan pictures of unlive Horn, are being so rapidly built on nml homebuilders are so ruthlessly tearing up the old unlive Irons that have spread their shade and their beauty right down the years, and substitution for them all sorts ol exotics, (lint public opinion is being aroused on the (piestion of establishing plant sanel tiaries and preserving, some al least of the woodlands that; remain in the city's environs, before it is too late. AVlial a few years apn were picturesque- spots, brightened by old spreadiup; trees and the sweet notes ot birds, are gradually becoming densely populated suburbs. Ked-rouled bungalows shoot up. Then come paths and roads, then telegraphs, and all the other modern facilities that minister to men, and it is gnml-byc to the birds and the trees. They are aliens in thenown country and are swept out. Perhaps the last stronghold ot the native trees and birds about Sydney is me North Shore, but the fear is that ibis, 100, will disappear, especially when Pbe harbour bridge is built, and the city inevitably spreads that way. Not only are the destructive agencies ol man disliguring the landscape ol a crowded metropolis, hut another cause for concern among those who have some recant for the civic aesthetics is the relentless march of couch grass, which is smothering out of existence native plants of comparatively large si/.e, and in this work of destruction btilfalo and other exotic crosses arc collaborating. ft is the beauty ol Ibe North Shore That is most threatened bv all these agencies, and by some ot the most aggressive of sub-tropical weeds. Settlement has set in so vicorousiv there that there is at least a,, awakening to the tact that the enduring charms of native trees and bird life have tl’.eir place in the economy () f life as well as plain bricks and mortar.