272 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



is very apparent to those who attempt to rear wild 

 plants in situations where they are not indigenous. 

 This fact is so important a feature in the natural 

 history of plants, that it is not perhaps sufficiently 

 pointed out or explained in books treating on these 

 subjects. It is a very natural result, which on con- 

 sideration should not excite surprise, that a wild 

 plant, which has been from time immemorial produced 

 on the same spot, and has there accommodated itself 

 solely to the circumstances of that spot, should refuse 

 to grow in any other situation where the circum- 

 stances are not precisely similar. It is upon this 

 principle that the mountain berry will not flourish 

 upon the champaign country, and that the sweetest 

 flowers of the woodlands refuse their odour to the 

 parterre. In like manner, ' Good King Harry,' 

 which makes a very estimable spinach or asparagus 

 in its native country, might make but a very sorry 

 one if removed to a place where it is not indi- 

 genous. 



NEW ZEALAND SPINACH Tetragonia expansa,- 

 so called, because it was found growing wild on the 

 shores of New Zealand when Captain Cook first 

 touched at that island. Although the natives made 

 no use of this plant as an esculent, the naturalists 

 who accompanied the expedition were induced to 

 recommend it as a vegetable which might be safely 

 eaten, since its appearance and general characteris- 

 tics were so similar to the chenopodium. On trial, 

 it was found to be both agreeable and wholesome. 

 Sir Joseph Banks brought it into culture in England 

 in 1772, and it has subsequently oeen found to be a 

 much more hardy and valuable plant than was at 

 first supposed. It was at first treated as a green- 

 house plant ; but now grows freely in the open gar- 

 den, and indeed seems already to have naturalized 

 itself in the south-west of England. A writer, from 



