Guthkie-Smith. — Grasses of Tutira. 519 



Poa ccespitosa grows naturally though sparsely on my higher 

 country towards the west, though it is not found on the main 

 ridges of Maungahararu. On the Tutira hills it has been sown 

 by chance, probably with rye or cocksfoot seed harvested in 

 Canterbury, where the species is common. I remember in the 

 early eighties but one single tussock, and after twenty-five 

 years there are but two or three patches, the largest, perhaps, 

 60 ft. by 20 ft. Though so exceedingly slow to spread, it takes 

 possession very surely, allowing no other grass to survive. The 

 increase seems to be by root. 



Poa Colensoi is a rare grass, on the highest country I possess, 

 and I have not noticed it under 3,000 ft. 



Poa imbecilla seems to be another high-country grass, and 

 grows locally at about 3,000 ft., and in the edges of bush lands. 



Agropyrum mvltiflorum and Agropyrum scabrum are common 

 grasses on the dry edges of road-cuttings and steep banks. They 

 also manage to find plant-food on the most barren pumiceous 

 lands — flats so dry and poor that even in our rainy climate they 

 dry up after a few days' drought. But it is not only on such 

 barren spots that these species survive ; in all good free soils, 

 wherever the herbage gets rough for stock, and the plants con- 

 sequently are allowed a chance, these species appear and seed 

 freely, and in my native-grass garden, on good well-worked 

 soil, long healthy bronze-green shoots appeared immediately 

 from the transplanted sods, and I have mentioned the height 

 of the seed-stalks. These species, therefore, like many other 

 natives, would do well on good soils if not choked by rye, 

 cocksfoot, &c. ; as, however, it is practically impossible to 

 prevent this on such soils, these natives are only worth cultiva- 

 tion on lands where the strong alien species will not thrive. 



Asperella gracilis is the last of my native grasses, and I 

 have only one plant of it on the run. It makes up the twenty- 

 first species, and with it my list ends. 



Any interest attaching to these notes seems to me to lie in 

 the fact that with the deterioration of the surface soils the 

 hardier natives tend to resume possession, and that the balance 

 of nature is again tending to right itself. 



The exuberance of growth during the eighties was abnormal, 

 and the alien grasses are no more going to permanently destroy 

 and oust the native grasses than the British weeds are going 

 to destroy the indigenous wild flowers, but one of which has 

 vanished from Tutira during the past quarter- century. 



The alien weeds, however, will form a future paper, and 

 with these concluding remarks my notes on the grasses of 

 Tutira must end. 



