374 DICOTYLEDONS AND CONIFERS 



form does not belong to this species. At the same time it is not Bras- 

 sica Rapa, which is a very different plant. I suggest that it may be a 

 hybrid between these allied species ; it certainly is an interesting form. 

 In the Noxious Weeds Act, 1900, wild turnip (Brassica campestris) 

 is included among noxious seeds. As no farmers and probably very 

 few botanists can distinguish the seeds of the species of Brassica, 

 probably the identification does not matter much. 



Brassica Rapa, Linn. Turnip 



Cook and Furneaux sowed seeds of turnip in their various clearings 

 in Queen Charlotte Sound in 1773, and showed them to the natives. 

 In November of the same year they found that they had seeded. 

 The natives spread the seed throughout both islands in all probability. 

 Marsden found them in cultivation when he landed at the Bay of 

 Islands in 1814; but the Maoris in Queen Charlotte Sound appear 

 to have lost the plant, for Bellingshausen gave them seeds in 1820 

 and showed them how to sow them. 



Nicholas (1817) says that the natives "had mussels and turnips 

 at this feast, but the latter had very much degenerated, and become 

 long and fibrous." He says also: "the turnip is called packahd from 

 its whiteness." 



The mate of the brig 'Hawes,' in 1828, found many cultivations, 

 in which was a small sort of turnip, near Tauranga. 



Polack, who was in New Zealand from 1831 to 1837, says: "the 

 turnip is found in a wild state over the entire country," but he only 

 saw a small portion of the North Island, mostly in the Kaipara and 

 Wairoa districts. Dieffenbach, in 1839, f un d that the natives in 

 Kapiti were cultivating turnips. 



E. J. Wakefield found wild turnips on the site of Cook's old 

 garden at the entrance of Queen Charlotte Sound in 1839. D'Urville 

 in 1840 visited Otago Harbour and found turnips in all the native 

 and the whalers' cultivations. Wilkes found wild turnips on the 

 Auckland Islands in 1840. Wohlers met with them growing wild near 

 Lake Ellesmere in 1844. 



At the present time it is still found near old Maori settlements 

 but is most commonly found as an escape from cultivation. (Fl., Dec. 

 and Jan.) 



Brassica Napus, Linn. Rape 



No doubt introduced at an early date, but first recorded as a 

 naturalised plant by Kirk in 1870 in the vicinity of Auckland. It 

 only seems to occur as an escape from cultivation. 



In Europe the flowers are visited by the honey-bee (Apis mellifica) 

 and the drone-fly (Eristalis tenax). 



