Cats-ear Grows in City Gardens.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 301, 19 December 1931, Page 8

Cats-ear Grows in City Gardens.

Nature Notes.

By James Drummond. F.L.S., F.Z.S. is flauntingly displaying its rich, yellow flowers amongs cocksfoot and other grasses in neglected Christchurch gardens and in many places in Canterbury, using all kinds of soil and thriving in all situations. It often is mistaken for the dandelion on lawns from which it is dug up or pulled up with forks. In his “ Weeds of New Zea-

land ” Dr F. W. Hilgendorf states that poisoning is the best means of eradication. He describes a method and adds that to it this plant, perhaps the wqrst weed of the lawns, easily succumbs. In Canterbury cats-ear usually is called Cape weed, if it is not called dandelion. The dandelion is plentiful in these parts, but the Cape weed, or Cape daisy, which came to New Zealand from South Africa, has not been reported from Canterbury. It favours mostly the warmer climate of the North Island. Its large flower is yellow, but has a black disk, and looks something like a small sunflower. Cats-ear, according to Dr Hilgendorf, is largely eaten by sheep in the tussock country of the South Island and may be the real stock-carrying plant of tussock land.