Our Native Plants.

There are refreshing signs of an increased popular interest in our beautiful indigenous trees and shrubs, and a desire to plant them in parks and gardens. There is also, happily, a growing dislike to the sombre and ground-encumbering pinus insignis and macrocarpa, as elements in a tree landscape scheme. Some of our older parks are dreadful examples of what not to plant, the Newtown Park, in Wellington, for example. Now, as the result of much writing and many public addresses by lovers of the native trees, many local bodies as well as private owners are busy repairing the mistakes of the past. The wise landscape gardener perceives the peculiar charm and grace of the smaller trees of the Maori bush, their unusual beauty in leaf, shape and colour, in flower and fruit, and their attraction for the birds. Unfortunately, our native birds are all too few near the haunts of man, yet it is delightful to observe how the planting of trees and shrubs beloved by the birds brings the tui, the bellbird, the little grey warbler, the bush robin, and sometimes even the shy pigeon about country homes. Even the planting of a few rows of flax bring the honey-sucking birds around. If there were fewer imported birds, we should be better pleased; yet even in towns like Rotorua and Akaroa, the Maori birds are heard, particularly Akaroa. Our parks could be made vastly more charming if the remaining ugly exotic pines were rooted out and replaced with the vegetation typical of the country.