﻿284 Transactions. — Botany. 



Avena 



sativa, Lm?i. 

 Poa 



annua, \iinn. 



pratensis, hinn. 

 Briza 



minor, lAnn. 

 Dactylis 



glomerata, lAnn. 

 Bromus 



erectus, Hud. 



Bromns — continued. 



sterilis, Lmw. 



mollis, Jjiom. 



racemosus, Tjinn. 

 Lolium 



perenne, Jjinn. 



temulentum, Ijimi. 

 Triticum 



sativum, luinn. 

 Hordeum 



sativum, Ldnn. 



Akt. XL VIII. — On the Naturalized Plants of the Province of Canterhwry. 

 By John F. Armstrong. 



[Read before tlie Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 4:th October, 1871.] 



The question of the introduction and naturalization of European and other 

 plants in New Zealand having become a very important one, I have been 

 induced to draw up a list of those to be found in the neighbourhood of Christ- 

 church, and to make a few remarks on the subject, more especially as no list 

 of Middle Island naturalized plants has yet appeared^ though an excellent 

 paper on the introduced plants of the Auckland province, by Mr. Kirk, was 

 published in the Transactions for 1869.* 



Though my list is by no means to be considered a complete one, it yet 

 contains 171 species, being nearly one-fourth of the total number of flowering 

 plants (naturalized and native) found in the province. 



This is certainly very remarkable when we consider that twenty years ago 

 few or none of these plants were to be found in the province. At that time 

 the district consisted of low swampy country, covered with coarse sedges, 

 grasses, large masses of Phormium tenax, or such shrubs as Coriaria, Carmi- 

 chcelia, Cordyline, Leptospermum, etc. ; here and there grew a small patch of 

 forest, generally composed of Podjocarpus dacrydioides and P, spicata, with a 

 dense undergrowth of Goprosma, Pittosporum, Panax, and similar plants. 

 Now, however, through the colonization of the country by European settlers, 

 the scene has been entirely changed ; the sedgy plains have been turned into well 

 cultivated farms ; the patches of forest and masses of Phormium tenax have 

 almost disappeared, and in their stead we have rich pastures of European and 

 other grasses, and gardens containing almost every plant to be found in those 

 of England. 



So completely have these introduced plants established themselves in the 

 neighbourhood of Christchurch, that they nearly equal the native plants in 

 *See Trans. N.Z. lust., Vol. II., p. 131. 



