14 NEW ZEALAND PLANTS. 
With the advent of the European came many of his animals and 
plants, which soon reacted upon a plant population unused to such 
invaders. Also, the settlement of the country, with its draining 
of swamps, its cutting-down or burning of forests, its ploughing of 
arable land, and its turning thousands of sheep on to the natural 
grasslands, rapidly brought about great changes in the vegetation, 
so that much of it has been profoundly modified or altogether 
replaced. At the present time, indeed, though happily consider- 
able areas of primitive New Zealand still exist, much of the land 
is occupied by a new flora and vegetation akin to that of central 
Europe. Nevertheless, in this book, when dealing with the various 
classes of vegetation, it is, unless the contrary be stated, the virgin 
plant-covering which is the theme, so that the pictures here pre- 
sented are of primeval New Zealand and not of the neighbourhood 
of cities or of the country seen on most railway journeys. 
The terms “flora”? and “ vegetation’ have already been used. 
It is necessary to distinguish between the two, for they are very 
different conceptions. The flora of a country simply means the 
species of plants as a whole which occupy that country. If they 
occur as truly wild plants they are said to be indigenous; if they 
have been brought by man, intentionally or unintentionally, they are 
called introduced. No matter how short a time a plant has been in 
the land, if it arrived without human aid it is equally as indigenous 
as its ancient brethren which came long ago. Indigenous plants 
found in no other land are called endemic. But the word “ flora ” 
has also another meaning—namely, that of a catalogue, with or 
without descriptions, of the known species of plants growing wild in 
any particular country—a work, when accompanied by descriptions, 
primarily intended to enable any plant of that country, when 
encountered, to be readily identified. In such a descriptive flora 
the species are arranged according to their families and natural 
relationships. Also, there will be a brief statement regarding 
their distribution. Investigations dealing with matters concerning 
a flora are called floristic. Frequently the word “ flora” is used 
inaccurately when “flowers” would be the correct word, and it 
is not unusual to read such a sentence as “‘ The hall was tastefully 
decorated with native flora”! 
Vegetation refers not to the species but to the plant-covering of 
a country. The plants, too, from the standpoint of vegetation, are 
