260 TUTIRA 



have, I think, been the transporting agency which alone can account for 

 these cases of distant germination. Unless seed had found lodgment 

 in a fleece and been thus carried far afield, it is hard to account for 

 specimens discovered miles distant from the parent plantation. The 

 insignis, as it is universally known in New Zealand, makes a double 

 growth each season, one in spring, another in autumn ; it is not sur- 

 prising, therefore, that several of the trees planted forty years ago have 

 attained a diameter of more than five feet. 



A score of eucalypts (Eucalyptus globulus) were also planted by 

 Stuart and Kiernan ; though, however, the species has reproduced itself, 

 the blue gum compared to the pine is but a sedentary plant. Only in 

 spots where fire has swept over the ground, and but at limited distances 

 from the parent trees, has germination occurred. 



Prickly acacia (Robinia pseud-acacia) and wattle (Acacia deal- 

 bata) perpetuate themselves not only by ample suckering, but also 

 by seeds. I have found young plants of each on favourable sites several 

 hundred yards from the homestead. Though I have never seen birds 

 feeding on seeds of either of these plants, they oftenest appear in 

 company of seedling gooseberries and blackberries, obviously dropped 

 from roosting-boughs. 



The original elderberry (Sambucus nigra) growing on Tutira had 

 also been on my suggestion brought up as a riding- stick. Although 

 the small thicket grown from this riding-switch has been destroyed, yet 

 the plant has managed by means of seed to migrate a distance of a 

 couple of miles. 



Of broom (Cytisus scoparius), a single plant grew for over twenty 

 years on the site of an old clearing on Putorino. Owing to ploughing, 

 of late years it has largely increased. 



Gorse (Ulex europceus) had also preceded me. On Tutira there 

 have always been half a dozen patches, spread possibly by horses, 

 possibly by pig, in very early days from a hedge which partly enclosed 

 a native cultivation-ground near Lake Orakai. No new thicket has 

 appeared in my time, although the original patches have increased in 

 size through ill-advised attempts to destroy them by fire. 



African box-thorn (Lucium horridum) and barberry (Berberis vul- 

 garis) have each been used as hedge plants ; each has spread not only 

 about the policies but to the distance of several hundred yards by means 

 of seedlings, all of which I may add have been destroyed. 



