CHAPTER VII 



PLANT POPULATION 



AN idle hour on a summer's afternoon may be 

 pleasantly passed by any one who knows the Native 

 Flora, in trying to identify all the plants within 

 reach, as he sits, perchance, on some grassy slope. 

 The vegetation of cliffs facing the sea, the turf on a 

 mountain-side, the dense wiry growth of the golf-links, 

 or the ordinary sward of a meadow would serve, all 

 different as they are, to propound each its own 

 conundrum. And happy may the observer feel who 

 comes well out of an exhaustive study of all the 

 plants great or small, complex or relatively simple, 

 that grow within the radius of his arm's length. 

 Often they will be in some stage of development 

 which does not show distinctive characters, and this 

 will itself complicate the problem, and provide 

 tantalising uncertainties. But supposing the in- 

 ventory to have been made with some degree of 

 completeness, and all the various dwellers within the 



