The
early settlers in this colony greatly missed—that is, those who had eyes for
such things—the change of the seasons which marked the year in the land of
their birth, and which helped so greatly to diversify their life in the old
home. They noticed that the weather got colder as the Autumn waned and the
Winter came on, and again as the days lengthened there was a gradual increase
in warmth; but the erratic nature of our climate, which often gives us an
Indian summer in mid-winter and then freezes us up in the middle or end of our
Spring, took away from the sharpness of the impression, and Nature helped but
little to deepen it.
Quotation from: A New Zealand Naturalist’s
Calendar: and notes by the wayside by George Malcolm Thomson. Dunedin, 1909
No doubt therefore this is why the early settlers planted European beech trees, seen here in full autumn glory. Compare with the New Zealand native Southern beech tree to the left of this picture.
