NZ field trips - Jan 2012

[Maggi Young]

Fermi: On the Monday immediately following the 2013 Study Weekend, we hope to run with our original plans and organise a day trip to the Craigieburn Skifield. (Just a reminder - the Study Weekend is now rescheduled for Friday 1st to Sunday 3rd February 2013). Look forward to seeing you there!

Doreen, no info on the NZAGS site.... I presume you'll pass along booking info at some point?

[Tim Ingram]

I haven't been able to keep up! I once tried growing Celmisia sessiliflora and Raoulia grandiflora, surely two of the most delectable alpines in the world - but really the place for them is at home in New Zealand! (Or maybe in Alan Furness's garden).

[Maggi Young]

We are most fortunate in Scotland that so many New Zealand plants feel at home here.  
You ought to contemplate a move,  Tim!

[Hoy]

We are most fortunate in Scotland that so many New Zealand plants feel at home here. 
You ought to contemplate a move,  Tim!

Then a lot of them should feel at home here too! Unfortunately I haven't had chance to try more than a few

[Olga Bondareva]

David,
Pictures of different Raoulia are outstanding! Many thanks for sharing!

[Doreen Mear]

Ian (the Christie kind) and Maggi:
Having rescheduled the Study Weekend, we just need now to confirm that all our speakers are able to attend same time same place next year, then we can put the finishing touches to our programme. Hopefully this will be in the next few weeks, then we'll launch into the publicity, so keep watching this space!
 
 

[jandals]

I've only just caught up with this thread - spectacular as ever! Where will the 2013 conference expedition take us?

cheers
fermi

Can you please bring me a pair of them fancy jandals Fermi?

and Doreen , if you look very carefully near Cromwell on the Wanaka Road you will see the Exotic Weed Seed Extraction Team in operation

[David Lyttle]

Snow on the local hills this morning though it is still summer.

Olga,

I am pleased you liked the Raoulia, I have long been an admirer of your splendid photographs - there will be another Raoulia in this present posting.

Tim,

I find Raoulia grandiflora a very frustrating plant to grow; it increases well and starts forming a good-sized cushion and then dies. I have Celmisia argentea growing well but it is more or less a localand prefers growing in bogs. Celmisia sesiliflora is a bit more difficult but I have managed to keep two different hybridsfor a couple of years.

I went up Mt Burns on wednesday as part of a Botany team re-surveying  the MT Burns GLORIA (Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments) Here is a link for anyone interestedhttp://www.gloria.ac.at/?a=9 This invovles spending a lot of time down on ones hands and knees scoring species frequencies in 10 cm² quadrats. We were taken to the site by helicopter but had to walk back down the hill. Since the main pupose of the visit was a botanical survey I was not able to take as many photos as I would normally have wished.

1. View down into the Grebe Valley filled with morning mist.

2. View of Mt Burns from GLORIA site. The summit is set back behind the tussock ridge. The snowbanks on the face are the location of Ranunculus buchananii.

3. GLORIA site with climate equipment and quadrat.

4. Working at the GLORIA site

5. Looking east across Mt Burns tarns into Pig Creek.

6. String bogs

7,8,9 We never seem to get away from buttercups, Ranuculus lyallii and Ranunculus buchananii.

10 Raoulia hectorii var mollis. This particular form is a lovely golden cushion

[David Lyttle]

A few more plants

1. Luzula pumila or that is what I thought it was until I talked to Alan Mark today - now I am confused as in Luzula pumila the infloresences should not exceed the height of the leaves.

2. Epilobium porphyrium

3 Hebe murrellii, a Fiordland endemic.

4,5 Ourisia remotifolia, I keyed this one out from the actual specimen rather than from a photo. It is meant to be fairly rare but is quite prolific in the high boulder fields on Mt Burns

6 Ourisia sessilifolia I am pleased to have got a picture of this - it is not uncommon but it is another plant that dies not like being photographed.

7. Celmisia sessiliflora Mt Burns form The rosettes tend to be smaller and the leavesare more sharply pointed than the typical form I am inclined to think that there has been some introgression of genes from Celmisia laricifolia which is also common there.

8, 9 Celmisia hectorii a small plant (it can form huge carpets) and a close up of the flowers. Very much a snowbank species.

[ranunculus]

7,8,9 We never seem to get away from buttercups, Ranuculus lyallii and Ranunculus buchananii.

... And why pray would you want to?   

Please keep posting these superb insights, David ... they are much appreciated.

[David Lyttle]

Hello Cliff,

 I am sure that picture  2.  "View of Mt Burns from GLORIA site "  corresponds to your vision of Paradise. On the rocky face dropping from the summit ridge towards the left of the picture you can see a series of snowbanks. As the snow melts Ranunculus buchananii emerges; fresh plants are still coming out in their hundreds. The Ranunculus lyallii occupies relatively sheltered sites in the tussock covered areas. The centre of the GLORIA site (photos 3 & 4) is on a very exposed ridge crest. The plants growing there are typical cushionfield plants ie Dracophyllum muscoides, Leptinella goyenii, Chionohebe ciliolata, Raoulia grandiflora, Racomitrium mosses  Some are so stunted you need a hand lens to identify them - they do not make good photographic subjects! However further over to the left and the right off the crest of the ridge you get back into larger plants with Chionochloa crassiuscula, Celmisia viscosa, Aciphylla crosby-smithii, Aciphylla congesta etc. The altitudinal range from Borland Saddle to the summit of Mt Burns is 1000 to 1645 metres so it is very diverse in vegetation terms.

[Hoy]

Beautiful, David!

Although the landscape is somewhat familiar the flora is not but very exiting