508 ISLAND LIFE part ii 



"' I am informed that the late Mr. Bid well habitually 

 scattered Australian seeds during his extensive travels in 

 New Zealand." We may be pretty sure that seeds of such 

 excessively common and characteristic groups as Acacia 

 and Eucalyptus would be among those so scattered, yet we 

 have no record of any plants of these or other peculiar 

 Australian genera ever having been found wild, still less of 

 their having spread and taken possession of the soil in the 

 way that many European plants have done. We are, then, 

 entitled to conclude that the plants above referred to have 

 not established themselves in New Zealand (although 

 their seeds may have reached it) because they could not 

 successfully compete with the indigenous flora which was 

 already well established and better adapted to the con- 

 ditions of climate and of the organic environment. This 

 explanation is so perfectly in accordance with a large body 

 of Avell-known facts, including that which is known to 

 every one — how few of our oldest and hardiest garden 

 plants ever run wild — that the objection above stated will, 

 I feel convinced, have no real weight with any naturalists 

 who have paid attention to this class of questions. 



