278 TUTIRA 



Spurrey (Spergula arvensis) was dumped on Tutira by machinery. 

 It first appeared directly beneath a second-hand hay-rake brought from 

 Taradale and allowed to stand temporarily on newly-ploughed land. 

 This particular settlement of spurrey, which must have reached its 

 destination in clay glued to the machine, was destroyed. The plant 

 has, nevertheless, elsewhere taken possession of soils suitable to its 

 requirements. Probably in a second attempt it smuggled itself in as 

 a stowaway. 



Other pilgrims depositing burdens on the station have been 

 animals. After the camping for a night in Whatley's Paddock of several 

 hundred travelling cattle, Senecio cineraria appeared plentifully. Musk 

 thistle (Carduus nutans), too, appeared where travelling cattle had 

 stayed a night in another paddock, the " Twenty Acres." There is the 

 further evidence of the arrival of this plant in this particular way, that 

 several head of the mob had been "dropped" by careless droving in 

 the Natural Paddock and had found their way to the main camp, where 

 in due time several colonies of Carduus nutans also appeared. The 

 idea, by the bye, that donkeys only eat thistles, is quite erroneous, 

 horses, cattle, and sheep alike being partial to the purple flower- 

 heads. 



Knot-grass (Polygonum aviculare) was first found in front of 

 the stable doors ; as I have elsewhere seen horses freely cropping the 

 plant, it may have, in the first instance, been carried up and dumped 

 down by a horse. 



Clustered clover (Trifolium glomeratum) was brought up in the 

 stomachs of stock borrowed from Mr Bernard Chambers. The plant, at 

 any rate, had not previously been noted on the run, and did grow thickly 

 on Te Mata, whence came the sheep. 



Suffocated clover (Trifolium suffocatum) has also reached Tutira 

 in this way, the plant appearing thickly on certain camps where there 

 had been none previously. 



A magnificent plant, milk- thistle (Silybum marianum), has spread 

 from Arapawanui, where, according to the late John Mackinnon, it 

 appeared in the early 'seventies. I believe it has been carried to 

 Tutira by pig ; at any rate it has been dumped down on the run where 

 cattle and sheep at that date never fed, and years prior to the sowing 

 of grass seed. The plant, furthermore, in its leafy prime, is too prickly 



