THE NATURALISED ALIEN FLORA OF TUTIRA 247 



I verily believe were a menagerie to be established or a musical fes- 

 tival ordained on Tutira, plants corresponding to these forms of human 

 activity and ingenuity would be forthcoming. Species possessing tastes 

 in accord with the dust of cages, heaps of mixed dung, horse-flesh, and 

 monkey-nuts would follow the menagerie. Top-hats, violins, ground 

 resin, old catgut, long hair, and broken piano- wire would doubtless like- 

 wise produce its specialised flora. 



Nor is this correspondence between certain lines of human enter- 

 prise and a certain type of plant altogether local. Not only does an 

 alien vegetation spread in the wake of man ; still more curiously it 

 responds to the pace set by him. Since motor traffic has been possible 

 on the Tutira road, weeds are reaching the station more rapidly from 

 greater distances ; seed that used to travel per diem twenty or thirty 

 miles in mud adhering to a buggy, now clings to a motor-car for 

 twice or thrice that distance. In the 'eighties and 'nineties I was well 

 acquainted with almost every single travelling weed, long before it 

 actually reached the station ; it was a perennial interest to mark its 

 modest movements run-wards ; I knew of these strangers miles north 

 and miles south of Tutira long before they actually attained their goal. 

 Nowadays they come from beyond my ken, though that for I, too, 

 move with the times has also been extended three or four-fold. Plants 

 indeed have sometimes appeared as though attracted to the run merely 

 by thought, a magic procedure which can, however, to serious readers be 

 prosaically explained. It is resolved, say, that yarrow (Adiillcea 

 millifolia), of which several million seeds are required to weigh a pound, 

 is to be largely sown in certain blocks ; a second step in our chain of 

 cause and effect is inspection of samples in the Napier stores. In one of 

 them, the seedsman inadvertently brushes against the purchaser's coat ; 

 in another, a draught from the dusty floor overhead is blown down the 

 ladder by which he mounts ; his hand touches the tiny seeds, or his 

 sleeves ; dusting himself with his handkerchief, they are transferred 

 from pocket to pocket ; they hide themselves beneath his finger-nails, 

 they fall into his shoes ; departing, he carries away seed lifted un- 

 beknown in a dozen ways. Reaching the station, they are shed on floors 

 and carpets, they are swept out dry in dust ; they are carried abroad 

 glued to wet boots ; they adhere to gaiters and saddle-gear. What, in 

 fact, had been visualised but a short time ago as silvery seed, appears as 

 if by miracle growing and green. Had Romeo to such matters seriously 



