316 Transactions. — Botany. 



its introduction was accidental. Similarly, it would appear* 

 that the Cape water-lily (Aponogeton distachyon) was planted 

 in the streams about Waimate by the early missionaries. 

 Of course, the scattering of grass- and clover-seeds on burnt 

 lands, on farms, and sheep-runs comes under this category, 

 but, with these exceptions, I cannot suggest any other 

 examples. 



It must very frequently have been the case during the 

 past fifty or sixty years that persons, from motives of senti- 

 ment, have sown broadcast the seeds of flowers which they 

 admired or were familiar with in the neighbourhood of their 

 •early homes in the Old Country, and which they thought 

 would thrive here on account of the similarity of soil and 

 climate. This is particularly true of such flowers as violets, 

 primroses, cowslips, bluebells, heaths, &c, and of fruits like 

 the bilberry (or blaeberry) and cranberry. But these plants 

 do not, as a rule, belong to what may be called aggressive 

 species. They cannot always succeed even in growing in 

 open competition against the indigenous vegetation, and they 

 never make the slightest headway against many of the 

 vigorous introduced forms. Even where individual plants 

 become established, they nearly always fail to produce seed, 

 and this is the chief reason why such species do not become 

 naturalised. In their native countries their flowers are 

 visited and fertilised by certain species of insects, and these 

 are totally wanting here. Our indigenous insects are unable 

 to fertilise them, and so they do not proditce seed. There are 

 no doubt other differences which affect their success in the 

 struggle for existence. The rapidity of germination of their 

 seeds, the subsequent rapidity of growth of the young plants, 

 and many other factors, which have not been sufficiently looked 

 into in this connection, all bear on this question. I have in 

 past years sown quantities of the seeds of many flowering- 

 plants of Great Britain along the wayside in one of the 

 suburban roads leading through our Town Belt, but from 

 none of them have plants appeared except from those of fox- 

 glove, whose strong coarse foliage enables it to hold its own 

 against most of its neighbours. If the others have germinated 

 they have nearly always been smothered by cocksfoot or other 

 coarse grass. In gardens many of our European flowers seed 

 now on account of the general prevalence of humble-bees, but 

 many others remain unfertilised. 



(2.) Escapes from cultivation are much more common, and 

 a few of these have succeeded in establishing themselves. 

 Those who have travelled to any extent in the colony will, no 

 doubt, recall numerous instances of this. Jungles of scarlet 



* Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. ii., p. 143. 



