10 
New Zealand Ferns 
The variation of species must be an extremely slow 
operation in nature. If the plants on a certain area have 
been striving for a “better place in the sun” for millions 
and millions of years, every conceivable form of varia- 
tion must have been exhausted many times over. It is 
only when something extraordinary happens to upset 
the balance of Nature that the change is visible to the 
human eye; for example, the introduction of the furze 
bush into New Zealand. 
The other day I was exploring one of the few wild 
places near Auckland. Every step over the rough scoria 
rocks brought before my eyes some fresh beauty — a pile 
of hoary slabs grey with lichen, decked with the radiat- 
ing fronds of Pcllaca rotundifolia, the chinks giving 
shelter to tender sprays of Asplenium flabellifolium; 
bunches of Astelia beneath which peeped handsome 
fronds of Asplenium falcatum; an aged ngaio tree re- 
newing its youthful appearance with a gay cloak of 
Polypodium serpens; miniature forests of Cheilanthes 
Sicberi, their trim fronds as straight as pine trees. 
Then I encountered a thicket of furze pushing its way 
ruthlessly over everything, choking and smothering each 
native plant that came in its path. Climbing a wall to 
gain the road, I entered a land of desolation — black 
earth, black rocks, black furze stumps; not a sign of the 
delicate trailing ferns, the climbing polypodium, the grey 
lichen; not a green blade to be seen! This was a visible 
change with a vengeance; the beautiful native flora 
utterly killed by the prickly alien, which would come up 
all the thicker for having been burnt — a veritable Hun 
in Arcadia! 
To lighten this gloomy picture of the march of “pro- 
gress” (?) I will give an example of retrocession. In 
1878 I was stationed at Picton. The sweet-smelling 
musk from some garden had run wild over a large area 
of swamp land skirted by the railway line. Not only was 
the surface of the swamp yellow with flowers, but the 
scent was quite noticeable on the train as one went bv. 
