250 Transactions. — Botany. 



Many tracts of such, country, as in the Wellington Province for example, 

 are exclusively covered with foi'est, having a more or less dense undergrowth. 

 Other such tracts are chiefly covered with fei-n, patches of forest and scrub 

 occupying the gullies and valleys. Others again, chiefly on the eastern sides 

 of both islands, are occupied by native grasses of more or less value for feeding 

 pvirposes. But whether the indigenous growth consists of forest, scrub, fern, 

 or grass, the great aim of the European is to remove it, and to replace it with 

 a vegetation which experience has taught him to look upon as the most 

 enduring for pasture purposes, even though it may, in some respects, possess a 

 less feeding value than the native growth. 



Amongst the ruder processes resorted to is that of periodically burning 

 the indigenous growth, and scattering grass seed upon the bared soil, without 

 any attempt to turn over the surface. This process has produced fair pastures 

 in naturally loose soils, especially in the Provinces of the North Island. In 

 the Wellington Province, however, the young grass is speedily overrun with a 

 growth of Carduus lanceolatus, which maintains its position with more or less 

 luxuriance for several years. But it has been found that the temporary 

 inconvenience resulting from the presence of this thistle is more than com- 

 pensated by the improvement it effects in the soil, and the greater luxuriance 

 of growth in the grass after its disappearance. The grass, however, after 

 having survived this first attack, is usually invaded by a much more powerful 

 foe, the Hypoclioeris radicata, a plant common enough in England, but confined 

 to waste places, and never attaining there the development which it has 

 attained all over New Zealand. I have seen hundreds of acres of land which 

 had been carefully laid down in English grass so completely overrun by this 

 plant that it would have been difficult to discover a blade of grass amongst it, 

 especially in dry weather. In the end, however, the strength of this new 

 enemy becomes exhausted, and the grass again becomes master of the field. 



But new foes have lately appeared in Nelson and Canterbury, in the shape 

 of the Malva sylvestris, which is most largely developed in Nelson, and the 

 Achillea millefolium, which has chosen the pastures of Canterbury for its 

 habitat. I observed lately in Nelson whole paddocks overrun with the 

 mallow, which, unlike its predecessor the hawk-weed, is not eaten by any 

 animal, and threatens seriously to interfere with the production of grass ; 

 whilst in Canterbury I noticed the yarrow spreading in the grass fields, and 

 completely displacing the grass wherever it grew. 



I might quote many other cases illustrative of the struggle which is going 

 on between various species of introduced organisms for the ultimate occupation 

 of the soil from which the indigenous vegetation has been removed by the 

 more complete systems of culture; but, however interesting these maybe, 

 they are far less so than the attempt which Cassinia le2}tophylla is making to 



