III. — BOTANY. 



Art. XXV. — Plants naturalised in the County of Ashburton. 



By W. W. Smith. 



[Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 4th November. 



1903.] 



It is now over thirty-one years since the late Mr. J. F. Arm- 

 strong, Curator of the Botanical Gardens, Christchurch, con- 

 tributed the first paper to this Institute* on the naturalised 

 plants of the then Province of Canterbury. The list attached to 

 his paper enumerated 171 species of naturalised plants observed 

 by Mr. Armstrong in the neighbourhood of Christchurch. 

 "This," he vprote, "is certainly very remarkable when we 

 consider that twenty years ago few or none of these plants 

 were known in the province." In deploring the rapid extinc- 

 tion of many species of native plants, he also remarked that 

 " the indigenous flora seems to have arrived at a period of its 

 existence when it has no longer strength to maintain its own 

 against the invading races." During the intervening thirty- 

 one years since Mr. Armstrong's paper was published the 

 number of species of naturalised plants has vastly increased, 

 while their phenomenally rapid dispersion, and, in many 

 cases, aggressiveness, has proved a serious menace to practical 

 and profitable farming in Canterbury and in many other 

 extensive farming-areas in New Zealand. 



The settlement of the County of Ashburton began in 1851, 

 when a number of sheep stations or runs were let by the 

 Canterbury Provincial Council to gentlemen some of whom 

 are now honoured names in the history of the province. The 

 Ashburton County extends from the Eakaia to the Eangitata 

 Eiver, and from the sea-shore on the east coast westward to 

 the dividing-range which is also the eastward boundary of 

 the County of Westland. The flora of the whole county was 

 then in all its native beauty and splendour. Extensive areas 

 of magnificent primeval bush existed at Alford Forest and 

 Springburn, and at Peel Forest, on the south bank of the 

 Eangitata Eiver. After twenty-five years of great activity in. 

 the sawmiliing industry these richly timbered forests are now 



* Tran?, N.Z. Inst., vol. v., p. 284. 



