A New Zealand correspondent sends me the following :— "
With reference to your paragraph concerning the proposed West Indian garden at the British Empire Exhibition, New Zealand, too, is planning a garden wherein some of its characteristic plants will be seen. The New Zealand flax will find no difficulty in acclimatizing itself at Wembley, since it has been known to have ripened as far north as the Orkneys. Maoris not only clothe themselves in their native flax, but a young Maori brave sends to a maid a slip-knot of the fibre to make the amatory proposal made in Scotland by means of white heather. Fifty varieties of the flax were known to the Maoris, of which the Chatham Island has a finely decorative crimson- tinged leaf. In the marvellous variety and number of its veronicas New Zealand possesses valuable material for the study of abstruse biological problems regarding the influence of heredity and environ- ment as well as a beautiful flora of which the handsome crimson veronica speciosa and the white New Zealand primrose may be singled out. Cabbage palms and tree ferns—the latter the national emblem once familiar in our streets on the tunics of Diggers on leave— which give their typical character to New Zealand landscape, will be shown, and even some of the tropical products from that Dominion's mandatory, Samoa."
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