THE NATURALISED ALIEN FLORA OF TUTIRA 243 



the sea-coast towns ; on the arterial roads it is possible they may be each 

 year eaten out by the great mobs of travelling stock that pass down coun- 

 try seawards, towards the freezing-works. Nevertheless, though a few 

 may thus be exterminated, or at any rate retarded, in their up-country pro- 

 gress, the partiality of the sheep for others is an aid in the struggle of life. 

 Each of them, at any rate, has to take him into account. The grasses 

 and clovers, for instance, bargain with him for the right to live ; whilst 

 providing him with food and raiment, they utilise his body as a distri- 

 buting agent. Others elude destruction by enormous seed production, 

 or nauseate him by their taste, or escape him on cliffs and rocks, or 

 quietly withstand him and endure his perpetual crop and nibble. One 

 plant alone the blackberry (Rubus fruticosus) is his master, seducing 

 him to destruction with the bait of its black fruit, openly trailing great 

 runners for his entanglement, and finally feeding on his carcase. 



Hooker's ' Handbook of the New Zealand Flora,' published in '67, 

 gives a list of 130 foreign species then naturalised in the colony. 

 Cheeseman's ' Manual of the New Zealand Flora,' printed some forty 

 years later, enumerates over 500 plants thoroughly well established in 

 the colony. Not far from half of that number are now acclimatised on 

 Tutira alone. 



Under the designation of naturalised aliens, plants have been in- 

 cluded which, surviving the accidents incidental to germination and 

 early growth, have reached the run " by themselves." With the 

 exception of fodder-plants brought up and scattered wholesale on the 

 run, species have likewise been included which, although originally 

 carried up by man purposely, have, after arrival, proved able to spread 

 abroad and propagate themselves under the normal disabilities of 

 variable seasons, trampling and grazing of stock, ravages of slug and 

 snail, competition of other members of the vegetable kingdom, not 

 infrequently also the active hostility of man. 



Scientific procedure, according to order and species, would 

 quite fail to show the true interest of this invasion. The plants have 

 been segregated, therefore, into groups, according to date, method, and 

 manner of arrival. The date of arrival is in many cases certain, in all 

 approximately correct, but it may well happen that error has occurred 

 in regard to method and manner of travel. Some species, for instance, 

 which I have enumerated as having probably reached Tutira in one way, 

 may also have reached it in another, possibly by two or more routes 



