302 TUTIRA 



entrance from the south, actually did reach Tutira, not from that quarter 

 but from the north. A mob of horses driven through the run from 

 Gisborne sowed it thickly in their droppings over the paddock lent to 

 their drovers for the night. Fennel is indeed largely spread by the horse, 

 for just as sheep, if run on bramble lands, will devour the fruit, so horses 

 in fennel paddocks will eat the heads and amplexicaul leaves. 



Fiorin (Agrostis alba), though to my knowledge sown on the neigh- 

 bouring run of Arapawanui in '85, for long and in a very extraordinary 

 manner kept off the highway. It was not until twenty years later, and 

 then almost certainly not from Arapawanui, that it began to move on 

 the roads ; established on the waste lands of the Tangoio >a, it then 

 travelled inland at a rapid rate. The slow spread of so comparatively 

 innutricious and unpalatable a grass can only be accounted for by the 

 desire of sheep for change of diet any change of diet. Surfeited with 

 a superabundance of ryegrass, cock's-foot, and clover, fiorin stools, instead 

 of being severely let alone and consequently free to mature their seed- 

 stems unchecked, were cropped bare. I am the more sure of this as on 

 fertile bush-land, sown only with grasses of the best quality, stowaway 

 fog (Holcus lanatus) has in several instances to my knowledge been 

 likewise cropped bare. Yarrow again (Achillea millefolium) has been 

 established since the early 'eighties close to the Tutira-Arapawanui 

 fence. Though a free flowerer, and possessing seeds so minute that 

 several million go to the pound weight, the plant never increased. 

 I have never known it allowed to blossom. For the same reason as 

 fiorin failed to spread, yarrow has failed to spread. Until purposely 

 sown the only specimens were the half-dozen near my eastern boundary. 



The pearl-worts (Sagina apetala and Saginaprocumbens)a,re so much 

 alike that for present purposes they can be classed as one. Like Lythrum 

 hyssopifolium they also, during their inland march, have largely utilised 

 the water-tables of the road. About the margin of runnels and well- 

 heads the plant often becomes a handsome cushion of green ; one I 

 recollect over whose verdure the bright drops of a little spring used to 

 course like living pearls ; its surface was so compact that each drop 

 moved with as little loss of bulk as quicksilver on polished wood ; the 

 spring water was so clean that for the best part of a dry summer the 

 surface of the clump was unsaturated and unsoiled. Each of these 

 weeds has reached Tutira from the south. 



Barley grass (Hordeum murinum) has flourished ever since I can 



