TREES AT NEW MUSEUM

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 739, 12 August 1929, Page 9

TREES AT NEW MUSEUM

NATIVE PLANTS OFFERED TO REPLACE EXOTICS SOLICITOR’S SUGGESTION The proposal of the Parks Committee of the City Council to plant Japanese trees on the approaches to the new War Memorial Museum has met with disapproval In many quarters, and it has been suggested that only native trees should be used in such circumstances. An offer to contribute New Zealand trees was made to the Parks Committee on Saturday by Mr. W. A. Beattie, an Auckland solicitor. He states he is willing to contribute and would obtain from friends a sufficient sum to purchase suitable specimens and to obtain the advice of Mr. V. C. Davies, of New Plymouth, oue of the leading collectors of and authorities on native, plants in the Dominion. Mr. Beattie writes:—"There are many trees in New Zealand which have gained a special significance from local legend, are eminently suited from this traditional point of view as well as from the point of view of their own ornamental merit, for the purposes of this war memorial. The Prime Minister of the late Government, speaking of Sir James Carroll s death, used the Maori phrase, now a classical phrase in New Zealand, ‘A great totara has fallen.’ These beautiful trees, properly tended, would therefore be most fitting and would convey to the New Zealander more than mere words can express. Exotics have no such significance. "The tainui. a rapid-growing tree, said by tradition to have sprung from the timbers of the famous canoe, is the traditional emblem of adventure and fearlessness in braving the dangers of the elements. It represents in a very real sense, with its golden blossoms, the prize of bravery. The torch which has been lit throughout the world by the men who served New Zealand cannot be better represented than by the glorious pohutukawa or the climbing rata, and their goal, peace, than by the masses of white blossom on the hohena. the starry clematis or the whau. The grief of relatives and friends can find its counterpart in the pendulus branchlet.s of the rimu, the sombre beauty of the pahautea. or the shapely young kahikatea. FITTING EXPRESSION WANTED

“These are only suggestions: the whole could be arranged in a manner which would give the most fitting expression to the emotional feelings of those who understand that this build ing and its grounds are no stereotyped form of memorial, such as one might see in a hundred countries, but a memorial built by New Zealanders for the glorious dead. Could the dead but be consulted, would they ask that they should be remembered by emblems of foreign lands, or by emblems of the land of their birth; by trees of Japan and Greece, or by trees of New Zealand, one single branch of which they would have wept with joy to see while they were over there suffering for New Zealand? “New Zealand is building a tradition,” concludes Mr. Beattie. “There is no reason to go abroad for the materials. If the trees are planted, it is to be hoped that they will be tended according to the most scientific means of silviculture and not just stuck in to grow in their own way. Ornamental trees of any land require attention.”