| dc.description.abstract | The object of the present work has been to investigate, for one district of New Zealand, the sociological relations between the indigenous plant species and those introduced to the country by man. The result of the invasion of New Zealand by people of European origin, and by the plants and animals that they introduced, has been well described by Clark (1949: V) as "a revolutionary change in the character of a region, which occurred in a period of less than two centuries". From the botanical point of view, Cockayne (1928: 361) has said of the present situation: "There are two distinct areas, the one dominated by primitive New Zealand conditions and the other by such as approximate to those of Europe, while between these extremes is a gradual range of intermediates". Allan (1940: 7) has pointed out that: "A new flora and a new vegetation have come into being alongside of, intermingled with, or in place of the indigenous flora and vegetation". Cockayne's "two distinct areas" have been studied in some detail by New Zealand botanists. A great deal has been written about the indigenous communities on the one hand, and about the artificial (economic) communities of introduced plants on ths other. However, much less attention seems to have been paid to the consequences of the contact between the two floras and the two vegetations. | en |
