NOTES BY THE WAYSIDE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2355, 13 April 1899, Page 61

NOTES BY THE WAYSIDE.

(By. Geo. M. Thomson, F.L.S.)

In lef erring recently to those plants tobe found in our gardens and growing by. the waysides which throw their seeds to some distance from them, I omitted to ( notice a very common one, and one which is very familiar to many horticulturists, though very few know it by name. The plant I mean is a small bitter-cress — Cardamine hirsuta, — which is a most troublesome weed, not only in permanent garden beds, but also in flower pots. It is such a typical weed, such an excellently good example of what a weed really is, that a short notice of it may not be out of place here.

We often. use the word "weed," ir its application to human beings, to designate a poor, miserable creature, of feeble physical, mental, and moral development. In one sense the term is right. Such a being is a survival, not of the fittest, but of Ihe unfit ; and such a survival is rendered possible only by the artificial conditions under which" most human beings liv^. Similarly we speak of weeds among horses, but we may be quite- sure that there are no weeds among wild horses. Weeds cannot exist in a state of Nature ; they are only an outcome of human activity, paradoxical &s such a statement may seem. So keen and fierce is the competition among all living organisms, that any individual not thoroughly equipped for the struggle, or which from any cause is unduly handicapped in the race for life, tends to be rigidly suppressed. But man, with his sentient faculties, dislocates the natural conditions to a greater or less extent, bringing into tho problems new factors, whose exact influence it appears impossible to .estimate. Thus in the question before us now, the' very process of clearing the ground of its vegetation, of breaking the surface of the soil and keeping it stirred, has furnished during the ages a new factor in plant growth. There has been evolved a race of plants, belonging to many and different families, which have acquired the power of growing under rhe new artificial conditions, and which consequently we know as weeds of cultivation. However diverse their characters may be, they agree in ono pomt — namely, that they are able to take advantage quickly of the&e conditions and to thrive under them.

Our little bitter-cress is one of these specially developed plants, and it is noteworthy* that part of its adaptation consists in having its flowers degraded so as to be capable of self-fertilisation, and thus independent of insects. In poor soil it forms little rosettes of leaves lying close to the ground, the whole plant being not more than from half to one inch in diameter. In better soils it reaches as much as six inches in height, but it is always a f-rnall n'.nnt, with numerous small leaflets, which have a tasto and f-mcll like that of cress. The flowers are produced on short stalks, and are fo minute as to be unnoticcable. Usually the first indication they give of their existence is the development of their long seed pods. The common form of flower is a crucifer, as seen iv the turnip, cabbage, or honestj, has four green sepals, four, coloured petals, six stamens, and a two-eeTlc'd ovary. In tho' little. Cardamine there are four sepals and an ovary, but the petals are either totally , wanting or are' very much reduced/ while only one pr two" stamens are developed. As tho flower is self-fertilised, there is no need for attractive petals, whilo a single stamen probably supplies moie than sufficient pollen to fertilise all the ovules in the ovary. However prolific and even wasteful Nature may sometimes seem to us to be, and she does seem to be lavishly so in many cases which we do not fully understand, we yet find a principle of the strictest economy running through all her developments. Unnecessary organs tend always to become atrophied or to disappear, and hence we find in a flower which does not need to open in order to be fertilised that four or five of the normal six stamens are superfluous, and therefore are not developed.

The seed pods ripen very rapidly — a, few days is all they need. Then if the plant be taken hold of to pull it out of the ground snap go the small pods like -so many miniature popguns, and a shower of little seeds is heard to fall all round. Truly, jt i§ an aggravating little weed. You leave a flower border beautifully clean, and flatter yourself that it will not need to be touched for months,' and ip, "in "three weeks 'it ha* grown a small crop of these weeds, which repay your attempts to pull them out by scattering a frenh crop of seed.

Cardamine hk&uta is both indigenous and introduced. In this respect it resembles the dandelion, sow thistle, and a few oiher pl&nt«. In all these cases, however, the plant rrkich w» meet with in our gardens is the introduced form, which is just as aggressive in its own war a» is the European settler when, compared with the indigenous Mw>ri. The nativo Cardamine occurti conimatily ia thu bushy parti cf tho Town Belt; it ia a mvLiuoie slendei

plant than the introduced form, and hafl always four white petals and six stamens. It has not developed the bad habits of its European relative.

.While writing the foregoing lines,- 1 hare been sitting in the shade (for the morning is oppressively warm), and at intervals watching die insects which visit the masses °/ ,^r ench and African .marigolds and single dahlias rt-hich are in" flower a few yards a , vra .V- The commonest insect just now is tne Eristalis fly. It is very lite a thick hive-bee in "shape, but is easily recognised by its two wings, whereas the bee has four. ; It is also a much more deliberate insect, ! going slowly over the flower heads as if enjoying itself in a leisurely manner Its curious rat-tailed larva is very well known it occurs in- stagnant water, in ditches, etc , in the earlier part of the season. The bees have taken advantage of these warm days to come out in considerable numbers. They alwaj-s mean business, and go at tlie flowers as if they .were in a hurry. There ij no such thing as cultured leisure among T r s • £hey work for work's sake. ■ Every now and then a humble bee comes bustling along. They particularly affect the dahlia flowers, bub seldom visit the marigolds. At this .season of the yea* it is chiefly the small males which are out; their term of life is short, as" all will die with the advent of cold weather, and only the queens will, be left to rear next year's broods. But the insect which is most- in evidence during this hot weather is the ted admiral butterfly. One comes sailing along now, with that peculiar jerky, hovering flight which is so characteristic of this fine insect. It lights upon a flower head, folds up its gorgeously coloured wings so as to expose the large eye-spots on the 1 ' under surface, while it moves rather awkwardly about, as if its body and wings were too heavy for its slender legs. I have been watching one now for the space of five minutes, and have been surprised at the number of flowers it has visited in that; short space of time. It has not only tried several marigolds and dahlias, displacing a humble bee from one of the latter, but has three different- times visited the same bunch of stock flowers. This is » thing which a bee seldom does. It visits a flower and tries the nectary, but seldom goes back" to < it again. The red admiral, as I have called this butterfly, though it is not the samo as the insect of that name so well known to English lepidopterists, is said to live in tho larval stage only on the nettle. In face of the abundance of the mature insects and the scarcity of nettles this is a statement requiring verification, and it may be that it is not confined to this food plant, but lms merely not been observed on others. The caterpillar joins several leaves together to make its retreat, and is thus very easily overlooked. But it must be much m,oro common than is believed, and it would be an interesting experiment to try rearing some on different food plants. Dunedin, April 5, 1899.

" Those who imagine lha' £3 a week in the colonial minimum wage, *»« under a raaous misapprehension," stated » Trade*, anr* Labour delegate. "For instance, if re lake the tailors, I suppose the minimum does not excoed 20s a week."

Mr Justice Day is a flogging judge. On one day at the Liverpool assizes in Februaryhe passed sentences on five men, including floggings with the " cat " totalling 165 strokes. Four men were sentenced to three or four months' imprisonment with two floggings of 15 lashes each ; the fifth to six months and three floggings.

ft is notified that complete specifications have been accepted in the following applications for lofters patent: — 11. G. Williams, A. Broad, and C. G. Crolly, Dunedin, an improvement in scrubbing, Khoe, and stova brushes; H. E. R. Rayner, Dunedin, improvements in or relating to fencing standards ; J. R. Melville, Dunedin, improvement in threshing mills; W E. Gioy and H W. Parsons, Dunedin, an improved device for checking and stopping machinery, also for improvement in dredges. "