THE WATTLE EMBLEM.
The selection of the wattle as an emblem of South Africa for the King's Coronation robes is not a happy one, and it is not surprising (says the Christchurch Press) that unfavourable comments are being made upon it in that country. Though trees of the same family are native of tropical Africa, the wattle is Australia's flower, and the wattle that South Africans find so useful
to-day as shelter tor stock, and as producers of valuable bark, come from trees imported from Australia. Aus-
tralians have some reason to be aggrieved, for have their poets not sung otten of the beauty of the wattle bloom, and has not "Wattle Day" been instituted in Australia, the beginning, it is hoped, of a truly national festival ? Yet there is a touch of poetic justice about the assignment of the wattle as South Africa's emblem. The wattle
grows in immense profusion in Australia, but it is regarded as of little commercial value. Natal, on the other hand, has realised its uses, and exports over ,£IOO,OOO worth ot bark in the year.
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Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume XXII, Issue 2791, 17 May 1911, Page 3
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182THE WATTLE EMBLEM. Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume XXII, Issue 2791, 17 May 1911, Page 3
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