PEDESTRIANS 297 



now comparatively a rare weed on the station, oftenest appearing, but 

 always scantily, after an unusually warm, dry summer. Like many 

 another alien, it has quite gone from its original site, the Coastal Hill. 



Hare's-foot clover (Trifolium arvense) was first known to me in 

 '82 as one of the most common weeds of shingle beds in lower Hawke's 

 Bay. I noticed a plant or two the same year between Napier and 

 Petane. It then took possession of certain dry shallow soils between 

 Petane and the Coastal Hill ; thereabouts, for several years, its 

 progress seemed to cease. Later I noticed it almost simultaneously 

 on the north-facing baked bridle-track leading to Arapawanui and on 

 the Tangoio-Tutira road growing rather wretchedly on two spots along 

 its higher pumice-sprinkled levels. A year later plants appeared on 

 an arid road-cutting close to the station wool-shed. It then followed 

 the main stock-routes, and lastly, with a very pronounced pedestrianism, 

 the sheep-paths. Now it is prevalent every- 

 where in the trough of the run, and in light 

 lands affords a winter bite of no inconsiderable 

 value. 



Narrow-leaved cress (Lepidium ruderale) is 

 a pedestrian I have followed up from the very 

 streets of Napier. It reached Tangoio early in 

 the 'eighties, and there for many years rested 

 about the homestead drafting-yards. Only as 

 the road progressed did it move inland, not in- 

 frequently in its travels choosing the angle of 



a hard road-bend as temporary camping-ground. 



. * Narrow-leaved Cress. 



It is a somewhat lonely plant appreciating 



trampled ground, liking to bake itself on almost naked clays, enjoying 

 the dust of sheep-yards and the vicinity of road-edgings. In the home 

 paddock and along tracks much used by the station collies, this sturdy, 

 stubbly cress is largely used as an object upon which are recorded their 

 more solid observations. It must be a very tickly plant. 



Mallow (Malva verticillata), a southern Europe and central Asian 

 species, first seen at Tangoio sheep-yards, advanced up the road without 

 stop but without haste, never covering great distances at a stride, a 

 single plant here and another there. Whilst on the march it grew 

 nearly without exception on the highway's very edge, half of it clean and 

 green on the wayside grass, the other half wheel-bruised and hoof- trodden 



