104 TUTIRA 



(Aciphylla sqtiarrosa), species of Ligusticum, and species of Geranium ; 

 whilst just across my boundary flourishes safe in the rocks the lovely 

 golden-yellow buttercup (Ranunculus insignis). 



Other plant cities of refuge were the rock gardens of the cliffs, the 

 sand gardens of the gritty tops, the bog gardens of the river brim and 

 lake edge. On the dry cliffs survived two native brooms, Carmichaelia 

 odorata and another, Vittadinia australis, Senecio lautus, Stellaria 

 parviflora, Tillaea Sieberiana, Clianthus puniceus brilliant in its bright 

 scarlet racemes, and at one period, until eaten out by cattle, growing in 

 great quantities on Heru-o-Tureia, and much more rarely on Awa-o- 

 Totara, Nertera depressa and Geranium sessiliflorum, both Fuegians, 

 Pelargonium australe, Muehlenbeckia complexa, Gaultheria oppositifolia, 

 Angelica rossefolia, Arthropodium candidum, Daucus brachiatus, Linum 

 monogynum, hill flax (Phoi^mium Cookianum), and "blue grass" 

 (Agropyrum multi/lorum). 1 On the damp cliffs grew Gnaphalium 

 Keriense, the very charming delicate Calceolaria repens, its white 

 flowers spotted with purple, Euphrasia cuneata, Cladium Sinclairii, 

 Lagenphora Forsteri, the native daisy Papataniwhaniwha, Arundo 

 fulvida, and other plants. 



On aits and islands and about the river's very brim the most 

 conspicuous small plants were Veronica catarractse, discovered at the 

 base of the 150 -foot leap taken by the Maheawha stream, Senecio 

 latifolius, Geum urbanum, Ourisia macrophylla, Oxalis magellanica a 

 fourth Fuegian, and Viola Cunninghamii. Here and there along the 

 lake, on the margins of springs and about damps and oozes on the 

 limestone hills, grew a collection of miniature bog plants such as 

 Hydrocotyle moschata, Azorella trifoliolata, Crantzia lineata, Epilobium 



1 Though now everywhere eaten out by stock, Agropyrum niultiflorum was a famous grass in 

 the early days of sheep-farming in Canterbury, its seed being considered equivalent to oats for 

 keeping horses hard and fit. An instance of this is given by Mr George Dennistoun of Peel 

 Forest. He writes : " On one occasion, in the middle sixties, when a neighbour, Mr Fred 

 Kimball of ' Three Springs,' was our guest at Haldon in the Mackenzie Country, news arrived 

 that his small son had eaten tutu berries and was dying. 'Three Springs' was thirty-eight 

 miles distant by road, or rather by bullock-track. At once my Australian thoroughbred 

 ' Pickwick ' was run in from the block where the horses fed, country then densely covered 

 with seeding ' blue grass.' I told Kimball, who had qualified for a doctor and was a fine 

 rider, not to trouble himself about the horse, but to think only of his boy. I can't remember 

 how long he took, but he said he never thought it possible to have been carried as he was. He 

 saved his boy, and ' Pickwick,' after a bucket of gruel, later on took his oats as if he had been 

 called on to do nothing out of the common." Readers can imagine for themselves what pace a 

 man with medical knowledge, and a father to boot, would ride, knowing the effects of tutu 

 poisoning; they can imagine, too, the racing-stable condition the horse must have been in to 

 have stood without damage a forty-mile gallop over bad roads. 



