New Zealand Field Trips, December 2007

[David Lyttle]

The following pictures were taken on an Otago Alpine Garden Group trip to the Blue Mountains in South Otago last Saturday (December1).

Fellow forumist Dave Toole came prepared with much photographic power in anticipation of catching an unamed forumist upended in a subalpine bog but said person failed to show so you will have to be content with my less titillating offering.

The day started with the mountain covered in mist and we drove to the crest up a narrow track that dropped off into the murk.

Picture 1 shows a tarn set in the middle of a cushion bog. There is a good variety of cushion plants with many coming into flower.

Picture 2 shows cushions of Donatia novae-zelandiae

Picture 3 shows flowers of Donatia novae-zelandiae

Picture 4 shows a bog cushion association. I can count five different species. I dont know what the first correct answer gets, perhaps an NCEA credit!

Picture 5 shows the epacrid Pentachondra pumila growing up out of a Donatia cushion

Picture 6 shows another small epacrid Cyathodes pumila in flower. This species is often confused with Pentachondra pumila.

Picture 7 shows Phyllachne colensoi growing within a Donatia cushion. It is difficult to tell where one species ends and the other begins.

Picture 8 shows a larger Phyllachne cushion in full flower. They get a lot bigger than these two examples.

Picture 9 shows a species of moss, Racomitrium growing over a peat bank. There is a clump of Cyathodes pumila growing out of it in  lower centre.

Picture 10 shows the alpine sundew Drosera arcturi. It is a very common plant in these subalpine bogs.

[David Lyttle]

As the day progressed the anticipated southerly front failed to arrive and the mist cleared. Conditions by lunch time were positively balmy.

Picture 1 and 2 show the vegetation on top of the range with views to the farmland below.

Picture 3 shows the tarn again surrounded by the cushion bog. The cushions are hard and quite firm to walk on but the entire area quakes if you jump up and down.

Pictures 4,5,and 6 show a series of lichens. There are two species of Cladonia and another I do not know the name .

Picture 7 shows Astelia linearis

Picture 8 is an Anisotome most likely Anisotome aromatica. The other option is Anisotome flexuosa.

Picture 9 is Celmisia sessiliflora flowering. There are a few scattered rossettes growing amongst the Donatia
Usually it forms extensive cushions of its own.

Picture 10 is of Dave Toole well known to many of you, talking to the trip leader John Fitzgerald at lunch time.

[Luc Gilgemyn]

David,
Great show of these arid landscapes with their (for us Europeans at least) unique inhabitants (flora and fauna  ).
Thanks for taking us on this trip - I bet there's more where this comes from....

[Thomas Huber]

Thanks for the show, David!

Very interesting to see the Blue Mountain haze-gorilla's
lunch-customs are similar to human ones 
Have you been in danger while shooting this close up ?   

[Lesley Cox]

Thanks David, for showing me what I missed, particularly poignant since the Market was horrid, with pushy crowds and bolshie vendors. First time it's been really hard work.

Obviously a super day and lots of interest in flowers, foliage and fungi. Looks like it was time Dave got a new pair of pants.

[t00lie]

Quote "Have you been in danger while shooting this close up ?"

Thomas --maybe if he keeps on showing pics of me!.Smile.

No doubt David will have more to follow.
Here's my contribution.

The first two shots give an indication of the varying colours of the cushion bogs.

More to follow.

[t00lie]

I'm not normally into moss however i couldn't resist photographing this one hanging over the edge of a bank.

[t00lie]

A couple of views

Firstly the view south towards the coast.
You can see that the track carries onto the next ridge.There was talk a few years back that some of the locals were keen on forming a 2 day hike along the crest of the range.Not sure how that has progressed however i now understand some of land is privately owned .Maybe that's where the hicup is.

The second shot is the view north towards the arid Central Otago area.

More to come.

[t00lie]

Final pics

One for Paddy

Aciphylla scott--thomsonii
Firstly a couple up high on a bank .Looked like too much effort to try and climb up to get better pics.

However back a wee way right beside the track was a large plant with flowering spikes just starting to emerge.
In the background to this second pic you make out where part of the native beech forest has been cleared and some areas replanted with a Pinus sps,(light green patches).Not my idea of progress or economics.Enough said!!.

Cheers Dave.

[David Lyttle]

Dave you caught the diversity of the cushion bogs very well with all the different colours from the cushion plants , different mosses and lichens with the lichen Thamnolia vermicularis (the white patches) featuring prominently.

I see no one has taken up my challenge to name the five plants in picture 4 of my first post! ( Dave you are not eligible). First a few more bog plants.

Picture 1 is Forstera sedifolia. There is another species Forstera tenella present in the area but it is a smaller more delicate plant.

Picture 2 is Gnaphalium mackayi a small subalpine cudweed that favours peaty boggy sites. The Blue Mountains form to my mind is slightly different to the form that grows further inland at higher elevations.

Picture 3 is Kelleria dieffenbachii a relative of Pimelea and Daphne.

Picture 4 is the lycopod Lycopodium australianum. It has now been transferred to another genus but I dont know how to spell the new name so I will use the old name.

Picture 5 is a rather nice plant of a Pimelea species with pink buds. It could be Pimelea oreophila but did not key out to that species. The moss is Racomitrium - three species are recorded from the locality - R. crispulun (woolly brown moss), R. pruinosum ( woolly white moss) and R. ptycophyllum (woolly green moss) so take your pick..

Picture 6 is Raoulia subsericea. This species form a loose cushion and is fairly common.

Picture 7 shows Kate our visitor from Edinburgh meeting Aciphylla scott-thomsonii for the first time. The glaucous green foliage and yellow inflorescence are typical of this species. This specimen is just a small one as the flower spikes can grow up to 3 metres tall.

Picture 8 shows Aciphylla aurea, the golden spanaird which is generally smaller than Aciphylla scott-thomsoni. It favours drier sites and is very widespread in the eastern South Island.

Picture 9 shows detail of the flower spike of Aciphylla aurea.

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Amazing pix David and Dave ! 
What a totally different world ! 
Thanks again

[Peter Korn, Sweden]

Amazing pictures and very interesting habitats. I must go to NZ for a month, some day.
Now I definitive know what to do with my boggy area. I also realize why I have killed so many NZ plants. I have just dried them out. The one I have grows best in wet sand beds with peat blocks.

[Paddy Tobin]

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant photographs.

Many thanks to our two Davids, really enjoyed looking through them all. I would never have thought looking at mosses could be so interesting.

Of course the aciphyllas were outstanding, A. scott-thomsonii is a simply-out-of-this-world plant, a real treasure though I suppose you may have been cursing it if by chance you stumbled into/onto it. It is one of those, as a friend of mine describes them, "ressurection plants", in that those who fall onto them are sure to rise again.

One quibble. I feel that David Toole has allowed his dress sense to fall into very unentertaining style. That outfit certainly does not catch the eye in the manner in which previous ones did and given the generally misty conditions your previous style might have been more suitable, certainly more visible.

Great show, many thanks. Paddy

[David Lyttle]

Paddy,

It was not until I saw Dave's post that I appreciated how dominant mosses and lichens are in the cushion bogs. The pale light green is the moss Racomitrium, the yellow is another moss and the white is the lichen Thamnolia vermicularis which incidently is found in alpine regions of the Northern hemisphere. Spagnum mosses are also very conspicuous. The cushion bogs form on quite deep peat substrates which are very acid and nutrient poor hence are not optimal habitats for vascular plants. In places where the peat is eroded there is a lot of preserved wood remnants of former forest and shrubland the was dominated by Dracophyllum  Halocarpus bidwilli (bog pine) and Phyllocladus alpinus (celery pine), These plants are still present but were more abundant in the past. From time to time one may find piles of rounded quartz peebles exposed in the peat, moa gizzard stones.

Walking down the Maitland Valley earlier this year we probably travelled twice the distance we needed too due to having to step round and dodge large Aciphyllas One of the party (female) accidently sat in one while relieving heself. Ouch!

[Paddy Tobin]

David,

I must admit that my only mental picture of mosses was of greenish blobs in damp places. These yellow and white mosses are extraodinary. Isn't that such a great bonus of the internet and the forum, that what friends can see on their doorsteps can be put on view for us on the other side of the world.

Great posting, really enjoyed it. I certainly won't be growing any of these plants in my garden but am delighted to have been able to see them.

Paddy