274 Transactions.— Botany. 
struggle for existence with the introduced forms, and the restriction of 
those less favourably adapted to habitats which afford them special advan- 
tages.” Further on in the same article Mr. Kirk combats the view that the 
majority of our native plants will become extinct, stating that the particular 
species for which this danger is to be feared might almost be counted upon 
one’s fingers, 
My own views on this difficult question are much nearer to Mr. Kirk’s 
than to those of Mr. Travers. I can certainly find little evidence in support 
of the opinion that a considerable proportion of the native flora will become 
extinct. Even in isolated localities of limited area, like Madeira and St. 
Helena, where there is little variety of climate and physical conditions, and 
where the native plants have been subjected to far more disadvantageous 
influences, and to a keener competition with introduced forms, than in 
New Zealand, the process of naturalization has not gone so far as to stamp 
out the whole of the indigenous vegetation, although great and remarkable 
changes have been effected, and many species have become extinct. I fail 
to see why it is assumed that a greater effect will be produced in New Zea- 
land, with its diversified physical features and many varieties of soil, situa- 
tion, and climate. Surely its far-stretching coast-line, bold cliffs, and exten- 
sive sand-dunes, its swamps and moorlands, its lofty mountains and wide- 
spreading forests, will afford numerous places of refuge for its plants until 
sufficient time has been allowed for the gradual development of varieties 
better suited to the changed conditions. No doubt some few species will 
become extinct; but these will be mostly plants whose distribution was 
local and confined even when Europeans first arrived here; and probably 
all will be species that have for some time been slowly tending towards 
extinction, and whose final exit has thus only been hastened. I cannot 
call to mind a single case of a plant known to be widely distributed when 
settlement commenced that is at present in any danger of extinction. 
Species have been banished from cultivated districts, of course, but they are 
still abundant in other situations, and probably there will always be a suffi- 
cient area of unoccupied and uncultivated lands to afford them a secure 
home. 
Speaking generally, I am inclined to believe that the struggle between 
the naturalized and the native floras will result in a limitation of the 
range of the native species rather than in their actual extermination. We 
must be prepared to see many plants once common become comparatively 
rare, and possibly a limited number—I should not estimate it at more 
than a score or two—may altogether disappear, to be only known to us in 
the future by the dried specimens preserved in our museums, 
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