Submitted by admin on April 23, 2009 - 00:49
FLORA, ADVENTIVE
The adventive flora, as distinct from the native (indigenous) and the cultivated plant floras, consists of all plant species which are not native of New Zealand and grow spontaneously outside of cultivation; examples of adventive species are wheat growing along a railway track, gorse in a pasture, or hemlock in a pasture. It is a significant flora, not only because some of its members play an important role in the vegetation by forming distinct communities alone or with native species, but also because it contains the majority of our most troublesome weeds. There are now few landscapes at lower altitudes in which adventive species are not prominent; some species are so widely distributed and are in such harmony with their adopted countryside as to have every appearance of their being natives here, and are sometimes mistaken for them.