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"bers Las been attempted by tbe Messrs. Taylor Brothers, wbo 

 have brougbt sbeep from the South-East to stock their run in 

 the south-west portion of the island. Sheep are important 

 agents of transport of such plants, whose seeds are readily en- 

 tangled in their wool ; and it will not be unexpected, if some of 

 the south-eastern plants should make their appearance. From 

 the stations, at which I found Accena sanguisorhce, I have con- 

 cluded, that the dispersion of the plant has been effected by 

 sheep, as in almost all instances it occurs about sheep stations 

 or watering places. However, the species is truly endemic, as 

 Eobert Brown collected it in 1802, though I believe it has been 

 introduced into many of the localities, at which I met with it. 

 The constant cropping of the more edible shrubs and herbs — 

 and of these there are few — by sheep must materially disturb 

 the balance of plant life, tending towards the extinction of the 

 preferred species and the increase of the rejected. 



3. Periodic turnings of the Scrub. — So scanty is the feed in 

 the scrub lands, that it has become the practice of the sheep- 

 farmers to burn off the bushy growth and depasture the sheep 

 on the herbaceous plants and the tender shoots of the arbo- 

 reous species, with which the burnt ground soon becomes scantily 

 clothed. Though grass covers much of the coast hills, yet it is 

 abandoned by the sheep in favour of the herbage of the burnt 

 lands ; moreover, sheep are subject to a wasting and fatal 

 disease, known as "coast sickness," if pastured continuously on 

 these littoral tracts. The burning of the scrub calls into 

 being some few species that are rarely or ever seen under 

 other conditions ; such are Cassinia sjpectahilis, Ptilotus Beckeri, 

 Senecio odoratus, Flagianthus spicatus, Poranihera ericoides, &c. 

 In the case of the Cassinia, which appears to be biennial, it 

 forms dense brakes, often reaching to four or five feet in 

 height, and covering some square miles, as I have seen it on 

 the south-east coast. Senecio odoratws monopolises for a time 

 other areas of burnt ground. The other sjDecies mentioned 

 occur somewhat sparsely. The firing of the scrub is re- 

 peated over the same areas every fourth or fifth year, for it 

 takes about that time, to replace the bushes in a state of thick- 

 ness sufilcient to feed a fire again. The only plant, which 

 escapes destruction is the grass-tree. The vegetation is re- 

 instated by the germination of the seeds, which have been dor- 

 mant in the soil, and remained untouched by the fire, and by 

 the development of new branches from the root-stocks of some 

 of the larger-growing shrubs. The practice must inevitably 

 bring about the extinction of those species, which do not mature 

 their seeds before their fourth or fifth year ; also many of the 

 annuals, whose seeds are not well protected to pass unscathed 

 through the fiery ordeal, will be exterminated over the area of 



