Chatham Islands

[David Lyttle]

I have recently returned from a visit to the Chatham Islands which lie east of New Zealand on latitude 44 ⁰. We spent a week there looking around as part of a guided botanical trip. There are two inhabited Islands, Chatham and Pitt with a population of just over 600. Main pre-occupations of the inhabitants are farming and fishing. The islands have a unique flora and fauna with a high degree of endemism compared to mainland New Zealand.

Picture1  Arriving on Chatham Island after flying direct from Wellington on an Air Chathams Convair. Note the brilliantly fine day. When we embarked the last thing that came on board was a steel pole about 1.5 metres long. It was carried to the rear of the plane and stowed away. When the plane landed the first thing that left the plane was the aforesaid steel pole. On enquiry as to its purpose on the homeward trip, we were told it served to prop up the tail while the plane was on the ground. If you look carefully you can see it propping up the tail in the picture.

Picture 2 is driving from the airport to the main settlement Waitangi. Waitangi is on the far left of the picture across the bay. The rather skeletal tree in the foreground is the Chatham Is akeake (Olearia traversii) which survives long after the original forest cover has been destroyed.

Picture 3 is of our accomodation Hotel Chatham. It was taken early in the morning before anyone was up hence the deserted street.

Picture 4 is the view from the hotel looking across to the main wharf at Waitangi. The beach is directly across the road.

Picture 5 is the rare and endangered Chatham Island oystercatcher feeding on the beach.

Picture 6 is of three members of our party stalking the rare and endangered Chatham Island oystercatcher.
To attract the paparazzi here you have to be a celebrity !                                                      1!

[ranunculus]

Fascinating stuff David......did you catch the Chatham Island Forget-me-not in flower by any chance?

[David Lyttle]

Well, we did not come to the Chathams just to sit round Hotel Chatham eating fresh bluecod, crayfish and paua or spend days on end in the bar as some are inclined to do. We headed down to the southern part of the island to a place called Rangaika where we saw some very special plants.

Picture1 South coast Chatham Island looking west.

Picture 2  Pinnacles, south coast. Many of the rarer plants are now confined to the cliffs in places  inaccessible to stock.

Picture 3 Ash layers in the peat from successive eruptions of the Taupo volcano central North Island. The volcanic caldera is now  Lake Taupo. There are at least three ash layers visible here.

Picture 4 is Astelia chathamica which is now widely grown in gardens as Astelia ' Silver Spear '.

Picture 5 is Tarahinau (Dracophyllum arboreum) standing after the surrounding forest has been destroyed.

Picture 6 is of the exterior of a patch of Tarahinau forest. It has been opened up by cattle grazing and as the ground is very peaty in time the trees will just simply fall over. These trees are giant epacrids ( which are now considered part of the Ericaceae but that is another story).

Picture 7 is of the interior of a Tarahinau forest. Note the abundance of ferns with the tree ferns Dicksonia fibrosa and Dicksonia squarrosa being prominent components of the vegetation. In this forest most trees start their life as epiphytes on tree ferns where they get better access to light. This particular patch of forest is a conservation covenant and stock are now excluded.

Picture 8 is Olearia chathamica, a shrubby tree daisy.

Picture 9 shows it flowering

Picture 10 is a close up of the flowers. The flowers are truly spectacular with their white rays and purple centres. Olearia chathamica is almost impossible to grow in gardens due to its specialised habitat requirements and susceptibility to root rots.

[Luc Gilgemyn]

What a fascinating landscape and flora !
Thanks very much for opening up this part of the world to me David !!
I hope you have lots more 

[David Lyttle]

Hi Cliff and Luc,

Yes we saw the odd plant flowering but that is for a later posting as there are more pictures to come.

[David Nicholson]

Great stuff David, absolutely fascinating to see.

[ranunculus]

Superb David....can't wait for the next instalment...

[Paddy Tobin]

David,

A wonderful show. This is the part of the SRGC forum that I most enjoy, seeing places from far away that I will most likely never see in the flesh. Many thanks.

Olearia traversii grows well here in Ireland though, personally, the olearias leave me cold. I have never taken to them and don't grow any in the garden.

Astelia grows with great ease here and, in fact, those growing in the garden look better than those on Chatham Island itself. I bought a pot of A. ch. 'Silve Spear' last year - it was reduced in price to 5Euro as it had obviously become pot-bound and was struggling a bit. On getting it home I divided it into 20 pieces and made a nice mass planting with them in the garden. Since then each plant has bulked up very well and each could well be divided again but enough of a good thing.

I do hope you have a photograph or two of the Chatham Island Forget-me-not. It is a very popular plant here and also does very well in our gardens. I am looking forward to your continuing this posting.

Many thanks.

Paddy

[Anthony Darby]

Mmm. When I saw Chatham Island I thought for a moment you had gone to the Galapagos Islands and I was going to be extremely jealous . Well, the first part was wrong.

[David Lyttle]

I will start this posting with a few more pictures from Rangaika

Picture 1 is Hebe barkeri which is reputed to be the largest Hebe species growing up to 8 metres in size.
There are three species of Hebe endemic to the Chathams,  the two other being Hebe chathamica and Hebe dieffenbachii. Hebe barkeri is the least common.

Picture 2 is of a another Chatham Is endemic Leptecophylla (formerly Cyathodes robusta)

Picture 3 is of a second species of Olearia, Olearia semidentata. It tends to grow on peaty ground and has narrower leaves than  Olearia chathamica. The flowers are mauve rather than white.

Picture 4 shows the flowers of Olearia semidentata - at this stage it was blowing fairly hard and someone was holding the branch to steady it so the picture is not very sharp.

[Paul T]

Nice flowers on that Olearia. Not a genus I've come across before.

[David Lyttle]

Paddy,

Following your comments this posting is for you - hope you enjoy.

I grow Olearia traversii for utilatarian reasons, mainly that it is a fast growing shelter plant tolerant of coastal conditions but I returned from the Chathams with a new respect for it. The following picture were taken in a private garden called Admiral Farm  belonging to Val and Lois Croon. Lois I think is the guiding spirit behind the design. It is a difficult windy site and uses Chatham is plants as a framework for other plantings.   

Picture1 is the entrance to Admiral Farm  The large tree behind the centre of the border is Olearia traversii.

Pictures 2,3,4   are plantings of Myosotidium hortensia.

Picture 5 shows the nettle Urtica australis growing amongst the Myosotidiums. Lois deliberatly  leaves them to serve as host plants for the caterpillars of the Chatham Is Red Admiral butterfly (Bassaris gonerilla ida)  after which the farm is named.   

Picture 6 shows a Red Admiral caterpillar feeding on a nettle.

Picture 7 shows Astelia chathamica growing in a large pot.

Picture 8 shows Brachyglottis huntii in a border.

Picture 9 shows the view of the countryside looking out from the garden.

Picture 10 shows Echiums in a border. The tree centre distance is a huge specimen of Olearia traversii laden with yellow flowers.

[Maggi Young]

Mass plantings of Myosotidium.... who'd have thought it? 
I'm feeling more than a bit cheesed off that the only Olearias we see here  have got rather grubby off-white flowers....these purple ones are lovely and I like the idea if yellow-flowered giants, too.

What a super place, both  in the wild and "under management".

[Andrew]

Thank you for the pictures David and congratulations on starting topic number 1000.

I know it says in the low 900's for number of topics on the home page but that's probably due to some topics being merged or deleted.

[Paddy Tobin]

David,

I am now in a state of unbridled admiration and a little envy. Such a planting of myosotidium is outstandingly fabulous; and they look to be in such brilliant condition, beautiful glossy ribbed leaves and a good spattering of flowers. Wonderful, a brilliant plant.

Re: Leptecophylla (formerly Cyathodes robusta), the photograph has me puzzled. There is a wide strap-shaped leaf up through the centre of the photograph and lots of clumps of smaller leaves around it. Are these the same plant? Most odd if they are.

Your nettles are somewhat different than ours, rougher in the leaf and also a little bigger. However, they do serve the same good purpose of providing a feeding plant for butterflies. Is their sting painful or simply irritating as with ours.

Re nettles: we have an old Irish phrase which goes, "An neantóg do dhóigh mé is an cupóg do leigheas mé", which translates as, "The nettle burned me and the dock cured me." This refers to the property of the sap of the dock to alleviate the irritiation of the nettle. Of course, the sap is not always available, most available in spring within the still furled and unopened leaved. At other times of the year it is simply a matter of putting up with the nettle sting. "Grasping the nettle" - does it refer, as I think it does, to the fact that a nettle grasped firmly rather than timidly will not sting? It's an important skill where they are a common weed in the garden.

Ah, a sudden  memory recall: Malahide Castle in the north of Dublin, home of the Talbot family is a great place to see olearias in Ireland. The owners have been very keen gardeners over several generations and have had a particular interest in southern hemisphere plants, particularly those from New Zealand and surrounds, and have introduced many different olearia species to cultivation here in Ireland, including the beautiful Olearia traversii, named after one Henry Travers, I believe.

Many thanks for the wonderful photographs, particularly those of the myosotidium - I really enjoyed those.

Paddy