324 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1949 
and in its shade grow seedlings of many forest trees, which eventually 
rise up and wipe out this ‘‘nurse” species by overshading it. So the 
manuka shrubland fills a varied and not altogether harmful place in 
New Zealand’s plant economy. 
One cannot feel quite so resigned to the fernland, though one 
quickly does resign from the job of trying to penetrate it. Its adapta- 
bility and prolificness closely matches the manuka, but within its 
dense growth there are few if any other plants. Like the manuka, it 
cannot endure much shade or cold, and so is not a denizen of the 
forest and alpine or subalpine slopes. Man may burn its tangled 
fronds, but new ones rise quickly from the unharmed underground 
stems. However, overstocking with cattle which eat the tender 
young fronds catches the bracken in its “tendon of Achilles,” and if 
the practice is persisted in, this scourge can eventually be conquered. 
A third shrubland community of much prominence is not only the 
result of man-made conditions, but of man’s introduction of plants. 
The English gorse, Ulex europaeus, was first brought, no doubt, to 
relieve man’s nostalgic longing for the lovely English countryside and 
to lend color to the generally colorless New Zealand vegetation. But 
this was an imprudent act. From the hedgerows it spread easily to 
adjacent fields, dry, gravelly river beds, formerly forested hillsides, and 
pastures. It is quite indifferent to the quality of the soil. Large open 
spaces soon became impenetrable thickets. Man constantly burns it 
off, but fire seems only to improve the viability of its seeds and to 
impoverish the soil, which harms the accompanying fodder plants 
more than it does the gorse. Control over large areas by grubbing it 
out of the ground is hopeless in this land of limited labor and large 
demands on human resources. Handcuffed with this gorgeous yellow 
culprit are the broom (Cystisus scoparius—Leguminosae), the rose, and 
the blackberry, and several adventive shrubs from adjacent Australia, 
especially hakea (Hakea acicularis—Proteaceae). One American 
shrub of this category is the tree-lupine of California, Lupinus arboreus, 
brought as a sand binder and now spreading beyond its first plantings 
to other sandy and gravelly spots, not always according to man’s 
wishes. 
The term “scrub” is often applied to any shrub formation. In 
Australia it is erroneously applied to certain forest formations, but 
Cockayne (7) applies the term in a more restrictive sense to any 
community of divaricating, stiff, shaggy, and often spiny shrubs. 
Such shrubs have numerous extremely wiry or rigid, much interlaced 
branches and twigs which zigzag at a wide angle in every direction. 
The thickets they form are close, unyielding, and often cushionlike 
masses. ‘To push ones way through this scrub is impossible and to 
travel over it is often a hazardous undertaking. The scrub is usually 
subalpine and is composed of various species of Coprosma (Rubiaceae), 
