TREES AND SHRUBS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 928, 24 May 1957, Page 14

TREES AND SHRUBS

NEW ZEALAND NATIVE PLANT STUDIES, by William C. Davies; A. H. and A. W. Reed, 47/6. SHRUBS AND TREES FOR AUSTRALIAN GARDENS, by Ernest E. Lord; Lothian Publishing Co., £6/15/- Australian price. HE remarkable photographs of New Zealand native plants, mostly in flower, shown in the 140 plates in a most carefully produced book, were taken by the late William C. Davies, Foundation photographer and Curator of the Cawthron Institute, Nelson. He died before he had finished writing the botanical descriptions of all the plants; the Cawthron Institute has now sponsored the publication, and Dr H. H. Allan has added the missing notes. The photographs are so expertly taken that it is possible for a novice to identify many of the flowers and plants from them, and even to form an accurate idea of the size of the flower or leaf photographed. The only possible small improvement to this excellent work might be the addition of the usual guide to the degree of magnification or reduction from life size in each photograph. Mr Lord’s expensive and large book on shrubs and trees for Australian gardens is a third and revised edition of a full guide, with many excellent colour plates and photographs, to a huge list of subjects-5000 common names are included in the index-for various conditions of soil and climate. It includes pruning and growing advice and chapters on numbers of specialised subjects. At this price it is probably beyond most home gardeners’ purses; but it should be a popular reference book in libraries,

J.