GARDEN ESCAPES 261 



In 1914 seed from a honeysuckle hedge (Lonicera japonica) had 

 germinated beneath a favourite roosting-place of minahs. The young 

 plants had found a suitable nidus in the shade and leaf-mould of a long- 

 established cherry grove. When, after the war, I returned, the little 

 thicket had been smothered, macrocarp and berberry hedges about the 

 homestead had likewise been overrun ; honeysuckle had also established 

 itself everywhere in the plantations and manuka gullies reserved for 

 native birds. 



The strawberry (Fragaria elatior), planted during '78 or 79 in a 

 temporary garden on the Taupunga peninsula, was nearly thirty years 

 later still surviving. It had been growing in turf, turf, moreover, 

 except for a few weeks in each year, perpetually nibbled by sheep. 

 Proximity of scrub may have prevented stock biting very closely 

 herbage rather less palatable on that account, otherwise this highly 

 valued garden plant had endured for over a quarter of a century the 

 hardships of the commonest weed. Moved to a somewhat neglected 

 corner of a later garden, the transplanted roots have taken a new lease 

 of life and appear determined to maintain their grip on the station 

 both by seed and runner ; but though vigour has revived, flavour has 

 altogether gone. Grown again with full exposure to the sun, the fruit 

 of these rescued strawberries is extraordinarily tasteless literally is not 

 worth the labour of gathering. 1 



When it is considered how in the animal kingdom some long- 

 domesticated species are unable, or hardly able, like the camel, to repro- 

 duce their kind and maintain themselves without the assistance of man, 

 the sustained vitality of many of our domesticated plants appears 

 remarkable. It would have seemed more probable that after centuries 

 of rich feeding, culture, and care, the stamina of such plants would have 

 become impaired, or at any rate modified to meet these artificial con- 

 ditions. Yet the strawberry, gooseberry, parsnip, tansy, horse-radish, 

 carrot, and potato appear after centuries of care to have retained the 

 pristine virility of their wild progenitors. 



Comment has already been made on the hardihood and virility of 

 the garden strawberry ; the long persistence of the potato (Solatium 

 tuberosum) seems as remarkable ; that such a plant, manured and care- 



1 It may be worth adding, in view of the open question as to the relative flavour of British 

 and New Zealand small fruit, that the taste of another variety of strawberry grown in the 

 Tutira garden seems to me to be excellent. I believe, too, that our station rasps, gooseberries, 

 and currants are as full-flavoured as those grown in England. 



