274 Transactions. — Botany. 



struggle for existence with the introduced forms, find 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. 



