he publicly advocated the establishment of a botanic garden at the recreation reserve. In 1933, with encouragement from the Queensland Government Botanist, Cyril White, Flecker established the North Queensland Naturalists' Club Herbarium in the grounds of the council's nursery in the recreation reserve. The club's collection grew from around 1,600 specimens in 1937 to about 5,000 in 1950 and an estimated final collection size of around 10,680 specimens. The collection proved popular with visitors, enhancing their experiences of the gardens. Until 1949 specimens were housed at the gardens in a storeroom supplied and erected by the Cairns City Council, then the collection was moved to the former Kuranda Barracks on the Cairns Esplanade. It returned briefly to the Cairns Botanic Gardens from 1967 to 1971, but is now fully incorporated in the general collection at the CSIRO Division of Forest Research at Atherton. In 1934-35 a significant advance was made with around of the reserve on the lower slopes of Mt Islay cleared of heavy undergrowth and planted with young trees. The mayor of Cairns advised that the reserve would be planted with "permanent trees which are noteworthy for their ornamentation and their regularity of design, planted at pre-determined distances, so that they will provide permanent avenues of great beauty." Trees and shrubs of a less "permanent" nature were to be removed and relocated to other parts of the reserve allowing for the development of avenues lined with pine, acacia, palms, Poinciana and others. This project continued until 1940 when part of the recreation reserve (suburban section 74, north of the council nursery) was converted to a Quarry Reserve for war purposes and part of the 1930s gardens work was destroyed by quarrying. It appears that oil palms, poincianas, hoop pines, two rubber trees, a Dillenia, a Schizolobium, an Indian mango, a Wongi plum, a Terminalia and a Malay Apple were planted during this period by Les Wright. As part of the re-development and in common with formal Botanic gardens, in 1936 the Cairns City Council established a zoological garden in the reserve, to display native birds and animals. This enhanced the appeal of the gardens to visitors, locals and tourists alike, and was popular with American and Australian soldiers during World War Two. Les Wright was appointed curator. Succeeding curators continued to build up the collection but the zoo was closed in 1953 for economic reasons. Following Wright's death