The Trees the Tourist Sees

in Suva.

WHEN tourists are in town, one often is met by the question: “What is tne name of that splendid tree?” or “What do you call this flowering* shrub?”

Very often there is no answer ready, because after all, in this land of Malua, folk are inclined to put off the study of the trees, shrubs and creepers that beautify the gardens (public and pri vate) until a more convenient season!

For brilliancy of colour, few can sur pass the great red tulip-like flowers of the so-called Tulip tree (Spathodea campanulata). There are some very fine specimens of this imported tree, opposite the Government Buildings in McArthur Street. It is not indigenous, but comes from the tropical forests of West Africa.

The Tulip tree has taken very kindly to its new home in the Southern Pacific, however, and is now growing apace in many directions. •It can be raised, either from seed or a cutting. To world wanderers it may be known under its other name of Fountain Tree.

On the other side of the street there is a Cassia fistula (Sub. Ar. Caesal pinaecae) with long racemes of yellow flowers, which is reminiscent of Labur

num and, though it is quite a different flower, it also belongs to the great family of the Leguminosae.

There are many good specimens of the Traveller’s Palm (Ravanala mada gascariensis), in the same piece of land.

It is needless to say that this palm has been extolled by travellers in waterless deserts, because it has so often quenched the thirst, or, at any rate, wetted the dry lips of some wayworn explorer. In some tropical countries these palms are called the “Builders’ Tree”, because so useful for hut-roofs, etc.

A few steps, back to Gordon Street, take us to the Public Works’ Office, and here the gaze will be drawn to the smooth, glossy leaves of the Dilo tree (Calophyllum inophyllum). According to the time of year, we shall see the waxen white flowers with their golden eyes —or the round nuts, from which tne now world-famous dilo oil is ex tracted.

For countless generations, the Fijian knew its theurapeutic values, and at last it has been acknowledged as valuable by the medical profession, as a splendid cure, or alleviation, in certain cases of stubborn rheumatoid-arthritis and other kindred maladies.

As an ornamental tree, it may be given pride of place, when properly cared for, and well grown. It is partial to the coast, and at one time might be admired on the littoral of many islands in the Group. But the spoiler’s hand has not, we hear, spared even this at tractive tree; it has not been granted immunity, any more than have those useful fruiting trees of the lighter forest-land, where Wi and Kavika are being destroyed for no apparent reason. (The Dilo belongs to the Guttiferal Order.).

At the corner made by the intersection between Hercules Road and Gordon Street all that remains of a magni ficently large and radiantly beautiful Flamboyant (Delonix regia) comes into view. It is but the ruined remnant of its former gorgeous splendour—so has Nature everywhere to shrink away be fore the onrush of Science; and Utility quickly fills the place of age-old Beauty!

Telephone wires, and wires for light ing are responsible for the disfigure ment of many a fine tree, which had begun its life before such novelties were even thought of.—H.B.R.P.

Rev. James F. Barge, of the Mela nesian Mission, arrived in Sydney by the “Malaita” from the Solomons on De cember 17. He is stationed at Maka, on Malaita Island, and has come South to spend three months’ furlough in Australia. Accompanying him was a Solomon Islander, William Tela, of North Malaita, who has been an orderly at the Melanesian Mission’s Fauabu Hospital, and who is on his way to Fiji to study for five years at the Central Medical Training School, Suva, to be come a Native Medical Practitioner.

Dr. L. Swinnerton Duke, Government Medical Officer at Norfolk Island, ar rived in Sydney by the December “Morinda” on leave.