alpine and subalpine Plants from New Zealand

[David Lyttle]

Nice to see you are still able to walk up hills, Mr Toole 

[Maggi Young]

Not a particularly good flowering year down this end of the South island with many genera having a year off

 Looks pretty good from here though, t00lie!
Good to see your knees are still in some sort of working order - don't overdo it.   
Must say I still find it hard to see your legs without their purple woolly tights, even after all these years - I'm never sure it's really you!

[t00lie]

Hi Dave....
my best wishes for your knees. Mine is similar... but durable and irreparable.

The low shape of Gentianella bellidifolia is fantastic. Also the picture of Phyllanche colensoi is the madness... so many different species in a small space. Ingenious.
And there's not much to say about Aciphylla crosby-smithii... a dream.

Cheers
Thomas

... by the way, even though it is not botanically correct, my friends and I continue to use the term Hebe. Hebe is New Zealand... Veronica the rest of the world.   

They will probably go back to Hebe at some stage Thomas .....

Nice to see you are still able to walk up hills, Mr Toole 

 

Looks pretty good from here though, t00lie!
Good to see your knees are still in some sort of working order - don't overdo it.   
Must say I still find it hard to see your legs without their purple woolly tights, even after all these years - I'm never sure it's really you!

Rather too warm here for tights Mrs Young  .I understand it got down to a balmy 12c overnight when Steve camped out in the 'hills' recently. Highs of 32c on the coast here the last couple of days ..Yuk !. Seems I picked the wrong week to start back at work Maggi.....  

[David Lyttle]

Last week I joined Heidi Meudt and Antony Kusabs from Te Papa in Wellington for a few days botanical field work in North Otago and South Canterbury. A number of other people joined the party at different stages including Hugh Wood who some of you know.The others were longstanding friends and colleagues, all expert field botanists so it was really nice to get out in the field with them again. Dave Toole had been on an earlier excursion to Hummock Peak with them but he did not come to North Otago. Heidi and Ant were collecting Myosotis species. The first site we wished to visit was Mt Ida where Donald Petrie had originally collected Myosotis oreophila. We headed up the Hawkdun Range on the 4WD track where we left the vehicles at 1600 m and headed across a series of  high ridges and saddles to Mt Ida.

Chionochloa macra tussock grassland and screes of the Hawkdun Range



Looking south watching the weather


Heading across to Mt Ida


Looking north east Mt Ida on right


Another view of Mt Ida; No one reached the summit but several members of the party got to the crest of the long ridge centre of the picture. Too much botanising.

[David Lyttle]

Raoulia eximia was plentiful on the screes and rock outcrops

A flock of vegetable sheep in the distance browsing on stones


Coming closer


A rather nice specimen


Close up showing dark red flowers

[David Lyttle]

We have plenty of Raoulias

Raoulia hectorii var hectorii which is very common on these high alpine exposed sites.


and much less common Raoulia petriensis


closeup

[David Lyttle]

A nice specimen of Hebe epacridea


And growing in the rock outcrops Leucogenes grandiceps ( specially photographed for you, Thomas)

[David Lyttle]

Now we come to one of the more spectacular finds of the day; several hybrids betwen Raoulia eximia and Leucogenes grandiceps. These bigeneric hybrids are infrequently found in the wild but a few have found their way into cultivation most notably Raoulia loganii which is a hybrid between Raoulia rubra and Leucogenes leontopodium.

First the hybrid and Raoulia eximia growing side by side


Two examples of the hybrid


Close up of the cushion showing flowers

[Leucogenes]

Hello, David,

I am almost speechless with enthusiasm. What a pleasure these pictures are to me. There is no need for any further remarks about the individual images. They're all equally beautiful. Thank you very much for these breathtaking photos.

Now it's a beautiful day for me. 

Thomas

[Gabriela]

Same like Thomas - now it's a beautiful evening for me
These Raoulia are pretty incredible plants!

[t00lie]

Nice images David .
Of particular interest is R.petriensis which Ive never seen in the wild.
Thanks for posting.

[David Lyttle]

Hi everyone,
Pleased you liked the images. Still have a lot more to catalogue and database.

Dave, we saw R. petriei at two places; Hawkdun Range and Awakino (over the other side of the saddle). The other thing that may be of interest to you is that we found Montigena on the Hawkdun Range. It has certainly been recorded from there in the past but now I know where it is

[Leucogenes]

Not only interesting for Dave... Montigena novae-zelandiae I also find very beautiful.
I'm looking forward to the upcoming pictures, David.

Thomas

[Ian Y]

David, it is great to see the Raoulia and hybrids, there seems to be a lot of flower, is this a particularly good year for their flowers?

[t00lie]

Hi everyone,
Pleased you liked the images. Still have a lot more to catalogue and database.

Dave, we saw R. petriei at two places; Hawkdun Range and Awakino (over the other side of the saddle). The other thing that may be of interest to you is that we found Montigena on the Hawkdun Range. It has certainly been recorded from there in the past but now I know where it is

Great you came across the Montigena David, if I remember correctly at one stage many years ago we talked about trying locate it in that area however not long after that discussion Doug Logan and I located plants in flower near Lake Lyndon ,Canterbury so it got 'put on the back burner' .........

I have another image somewhere in my image library of it's stunning inflated seed pods looking like some of the North American Astragalus .