THE NATURALISED ALIEN FLORA OF TUTIRA 245 



has been possible to spy out the land from an elevation, not of six feet, 

 but of eight or nine. Again, a great proportion of shepherd's work is 

 work done in the early hours of the morning. Plants, grasses perhaps 

 especially, then stand forth from one another with extraordinary 

 clearness ; discrimination, difficult at noon, is simple at dawn, when 

 dew emphasises the most minute dissimilarities. 



Tutira plants have been marked not for a day and never again, but 

 year after year, each in its own self-selected spot. There has occurred 

 the rarely vouchsafed opportunity of watching aliens on one particular 

 bit of land, not as a stranger passing by, who views a particular species 

 temporarily rampant, and who continues on his way with that most 

 misleading fact stamped on his mind, but season after season. 1 Thus 

 have been watched the appearance of the pioneer plant, its rapid increase, 

 its vast multiplication as if about to overspread the whole district, the 

 check in its numbers, its slow diminution till perhaps a weed viewed in 

 turn as a nuisance, menace, and actual peril, dies back to the normal, 

 specimens appearing so rarely that instead of being cursed as a foe it is 

 welcomed as an old friend reviving an old interest. 



The annals of Tutira can be read in its weeds. Each phase in the 

 improvement, each stage in the development of the run, has been marked 

 by the arrival and establishment of aliens particularly fitted for the 

 particular condition. Each of the main periods in the history of the 

 station has produced an especial flora. 



In the 'sixties, when Maoris were still in occupation of the run, its 

 acclimatised species consisted of a grass or two, such as rye (Lolium 

 perenne), a few purposely planted edible fruits Cape-gooseberry (Phy- 

 salis peruviana), peach and potato, a few pot-herbs, such as mint 

 (Nepeta cataria) and thyme (Thymus vulgaris). 



In the 'seventies stocking was attempted. That period was marked 

 by the establishment of plants carried up in the body of man, as black- 

 berry ; in the stomachs of stock, as members of the clover family ; in the 

 wool of sheep, as Australian burr (Accena ovina). 



During the 'eighties the house and wool-shed were built and a 

 permanent homestead established. As if by magic, there appeared 

 those plants which seem to be almost parasites to mankind plantain 



1 I cannot but think that the great botanist Hooker may have been misled by reports of 

 some such temporary multiplications of aliens into the fear expressed by him as to the 

 " actual displacement and possible extinction of a portion of the native flora by the introduced." 



