The 2011 Banks Memorial Lecture: A history of the cultivars of New Zealand’s indigenous plants and the infl uence of ERMA Lawrie Metcalf1 his Handbook of the New Zealand fl ora (Hooker, 1864). In fact, Thomas Frederic Cheeseman (the well- known New Zealand botanist) noted that Richard’s fl ora was the “fi rst Fig. 1 Lawrie Metcalf publication dealing with the fl ora delivering the 2011 of New Zealand as a whole, and Banks Memorial possesses considerable merit, so Lecture. Photo: Gil Hanly. much so that it is to be regretted that so little use of it has been made by Reading the title of this lecture New Zealand botanists” (Cheeseman, (Fig. 1), you may well ask, just what 1906). It could be suggested the has New Zealand’s Environmental reason for that was because so few Risk Management Authority got to do of them probably took the trouble to with an address on the cultivars of learn the French language. New Zealand’s indigenous fl ora? After all, ERMA is neither a horticultural By the early 18th century a greater society nor a botanical organisation. number of explorers and botanists However, the answer to that question began to visit New Zealand and will become clearer later on. some naturally commenced collecting seeds to send back to contacts in Right from the day of 9th October Britain and Europe. The Cunningham 1769 when James Cook, on his fi rst brothers, Allan and Richard, were two voyage of discovery to the southern who made many discoveries of new hemisphere, arrived in New Zealand Fig. 2 An early colour illustration of Sophora species in Northland. The younger its plants and animals were a tetraptera, published in The Botanical brother, Richard Cunningham source of wonder to Europeans. Magazine; or, Flower-Garden Displayedd, by arrived in 1833 and one notable The scientists that he brought with William Curtis. v. 5–6 (1792–1793), No. 167. Image courtesy Missouri Botanical Garden, species he discovered was Hebe him, including Joseph Banks and www.botanicus.org. speciosaa growing on the south head Daniel Solander, were fascinated by of the Hokianga Harbour. It is quite Although not generally acknowledged New Zealand’s vegetation and wildlife possible he may have collected by our Anglo-centric forebears, from and, in particular, they collected seeds from those plants because, the time of Cook onwards the French numerous herbarium specimens of by the early 1840s, H. speciosa were also quite active on voyages the plants. Banks and Solander also was already being cultivated in of exploration in the south Pacifi c. In collected seeds of some plants which Britain (Fig. 3). As a result of that fact, the fi rst fl ora of New Zealand they took back to Britain. Those seeds introduction, horticulturists such as plants was published in 1832 by included the so-called North Island Isaac Anderson-Henry and John Achille Richard who published Essai ko¯whai or Sophora tetraptera and, Luscombe, would have been quick to d’une fl ore de la Nouvelle Zélande upon arrival back in England, seeds realise the possibilities this handsome (Richard, 1832). This fl ora described of that species were presented to new species of Hebe would offer 260 species of plants, based on the the Chelsea Physic Garden where them (Heenan, 1993). Therefore, collections of Dumont D’Urville and they were successfully grown and they were probably very keen to use Réne Primevère Lesson, on two of fl owered, possibly against a wall it as a parent for hybridising with D’Urville’s three voyages. It should or in a conservatory. Therefore, other species of Hebe (or Veronica be noted that Richard’s fl ora was S. tetrapteraa was very likely the fi rst of as it was known then, and according published thirty-two years before our indigenous plants to be cultivated to some molecular botanists, as it Joseph Dalton Hooker published in the northern hemisphere (Fig. 2). should be again). 1 “Greenwood”, 179 Westdale Rd, RD1 Richmond 7081; [email protected] 12 New Zealand Garden Journal, 2011, Vol. 14(1) Horticultural Society’s shows in 1849, some of the principal breeders, with and offered for sale in The Gardeners’ Victor Lemoine probably producing chronicle and agricultural gazette the greatest number of cultivars. Much (1853, p. 274), it may be assumed of the breeding in France appears to that he probably created the cross have been carried out during the latter during the mid 1840s. half of the 19th century. The next hybrid cultivar known to have It was not just hebes that were the been bred, around that time, was object of attention by gardeners what is now known as Hebe ‘Combe although, for obvious reasons, hebes Royal’, raised by John Luscombe of were relatively quick and easy to Devon. It is similar to H. ×franciscana breed which made them popular. ‘Lobelioides’ with which it has Variegated plants seem to excite frequently been confused. John the attentions of some gardeners Luscombe used to write for gardening and so it was not long before one or journals under the nom de plume two New Zealand plants produced of “A Devonian.” He was head variegated cultivars. The fi rst of them gardener for the Combe Royal estate, may have been Coprosma repens Kingsbridge in Devon, UK and it was ‘Variegata’ or variegated taupata there he bred H. ‘Combe Royal.’ It which originated in England in 1866. was raised in 1856 when he crossed It has leaves margined with creamy- H. elliptica with H. speciosa. While it is white. The next one to appear seems now known as H. ‘Combe Royal’, for to have been C. repens ‘Picturata’ many years it was incorrectly known (Fig. 4) which also originated in Fig. 3 Colour illustration of Hebe speciosaa in as H. ‘Blue Gem’, and then some England, in 1876, its leaves having Curtis’s botanical magazine. v. 70 [new ser.: time later as H. ×franciscana ‘Blue a central blotch of creamy-yellow v. 17] (1844), Tab. 4057. Image courtesy Gem’. Hebe ‘Combe Royal’ is not its and yellow-green. Since that time Missouri Botanical Garden, www.botanicus.org. original given name but a more recent a number of other variations have During the mid to late 19th century, name bestowed on it by Dr Heenan, also appeared in New Zealand. The botanists such as the Cunninghams, in order to distinguish it from other variegated lemonwood, Pittosporum William Colenso, Joseph Dalton very closely related cultivars (Heenan, eugenioides ‘Variegatum’ appeared Hooker, Julius von Haast, John 1994b). Over the years the identities in William Bull’s Retail list of new, Buchanan, James Hector, and William of those cultivars had become quite beautiful and rare plantss in 1882. Travers together with his son Henry, confused and they became almost I am not certain when it and the as well as many others, obviously impossible to distinguish from each variegated cultivars of Coprosma collected seeds of our native plants. other because of a lack of suitable repenss arrived in New Zealand but it Consignments of such seeds were written descriptions and herbarium is amazing just how quickly some of regularly being sent to overseas material. those novelties were exported from correspondents. With a supply of such Britain to this country. For example, It should also be noted the material of stimulating plant material arriving Hebe ×franciscana ‘Lobelioides’ was H. elliptica that John Luscombe used from New Zealand, gardeners and produced by Isaac Anderson-Henry was, in all probability, the Falkland botanists in Britain and Europe would, about or prior to 1862 and there Islands form of H. elliptica which was understandably, become excited is a record of it being introduced then known as Veronica decussata. about their possibilities as garden into New Zealand, via Melbourne, Hebe ellipticaa was fi rst introduced into plants. Australia in 1868. cultivation from the Falkland Islands As far as is known the fi rst cultivar, in 1776, by a Dr John Fothergill or artifi cial hybrid, of a New Zealand (Heenan, 2001). plant was the well-known Hebe Although they were bred overseas it ×andersoniii ‘Andersonii’ (Heenan, is probably quite fi tting that these fi rst 1994a). It was produced in Scotland cultivars, known to have been bred some time during the 1840s, from a from New Zealand native plants, were cross made by Isaac Anderson-Henry from our largest genus of fl owering of Maryfi eld, Edinburgh. He hybridised plants, Hebee (Veronica). “Veronica ‘Lindleyana’”, then believed to be a separate species, While the early French voyagers with H. speciosa. Dr Peter Heenan, with their explorations in the south of Landcare Research, eventually Pacifi c were not too far behind James discovered that V. ‘Lindleyana’ is now Cook, so were the early French known to be a horticultural form of horticulturists not very far behind the H. stricta var. stricta (Heenan, 1994a). British in realising the possibilities for Just when Isaac Anderson-Henry hybridising Hebe. Victor Lemoine and Fig. 4 Coprosma repenss ‘Picturata’, a created his hybrid is not certain but Sons of Nancy, and Jean Chrétien variegated cultivar raised in 1876. Photo: Forest & Kim Starr. as it was exhibited at one of the Royal and Rozain-Boucharlat appear to be New Zealand Garden Journal, 2011, Vol. 14(1) 13 At this point it is interesting to native plants in order to produce In fact, during the period 1900 to note that while we had all of the some outstanding trees and shrubs about 1920, the Dunedin Botanic New Zealand fl ora growing in our (Metcalf, 1972, p. 9). Whether it is Garden was responsible for the own backyard so to speak, our local true or not, I like to think that my production of a number of cultivars, gardeners and horticulturists were challenge may have inspired Jack particularly members of the genus quite blasé about the possibilities that Hobbs of Auckland to undertake Brachyglottis.