NEW ZEALAND PLANTS. 



Every one who cultivates a garden, however small, has to cope 

 with what are called weeds i.e., with the plants equipped in some 

 special manner for occupying the soil at the expense of others. A 

 species that can rapidly repioduce itself from seed, or by suckers, 

 creeping stems, and the like, has a great advantage over one of slower 

 propagating-power, and will soon smother it out by force of numbers 

 alone. Some plants have large leaves, which they flatten against 

 the ground, and so occupy at once more than their share of the soil. 

 Others have a peculiar taste, making them objectionable to snails, 

 slugs, or insects, and so triumph over plants liable to the attacks of 

 such animals. But there is no need to multiply instances ; any one 

 interested can search for examples, and a most fascinating quest it is.* 

 The advantages in some cases are so small as not to be appreciable 

 by us ; but, however slight the benefit, the plant possessing it must 

 conquer in the long run. 



: In nature this strife between plants is always in progress a 

 silent but nevertheless a deadly conflict. The calm aisles of a forest 

 are a battlefield where the trees, shrubs, and more lowly plants strive 

 for the mastery, while at the same time the forest itself wages incessant 

 war with the adjoining grass-land the one or the other aided by 

 climatic changes, an abundant rainfall favouring the forest and drier 

 conditions the meadow. Thus, when the plant immigrants arrived 

 from the north and from the south, these two bands of invaders from 

 quite different regions, and not attuned to each other, would engage 

 in fierce battle ; many would fall, and those escaping would be driven 

 into inhospitable spots. 



What may be accepted as traces of such warfare are still to be 

 encountered. For instance, the beech (Nothojagus] forests may be 

 taken as typical of southern South America of stormy Fuegia, in 

 fact while the ordinary New Zealand mixed forest represents, in 

 part, one band of subtropical invaders. This latter forest is the 

 common " bush" of New Zealand, extending from the extreme north 

 of the region to the south of Stewart Island, and even to the distant 

 Aucklands. But near Chelsea, a suburb of Auckland City, may be 

 seen some New Zealand beech-trees. Other isolated groups exist 

 farther north, and even reach that most charming spot, the Little 

 Barrier Island. These solitary trees are doubtless remnants of a 



* This matter is gone into again in Chapter IX. 



