NZ Field trips January 2007

[David Lyttle]

My wife Belinda and I took a quiet stroll yesterday 20 mins drive from our home hunting for plants. We left the track and hopped over a couple of fences to get a few pictures. Warningg Do not do this on your trip of a lifetime to New Zealand. It is not for the faint-hearted.

Picture1 is a view of Cape Saunders named  by Captain Cook on his first voyage to New Zealand.

Picture 2 is a view of the lower Otago Peninsula looking across Hoopers Inlet.

Pictures 3 and 4 show some of the coastal features in this part of the world.

Picture 5 shows Melicytus alpinus growing in an old stone wall. In these situations it forms a very rigid low-growing cushion.

Picture 6 shows wind-shorn shrubs of Corokia cotoneaster. Many shrubs here exhibit the divaricating form of growth where instead of one leader there are multiple growing points giving a shrub that is a tight mass of interlaced branches. The prevailing wind trims these shrubs into very tight shapes.

Pictures 7 and 8 are of the orchid Corybas macranthus showing the leaves of this plant and the flower. I was fortunate to find a single flower amongst a colony of many hundreds of plants growing on an exposed turfy bank. Corybas species can be a bit difficult to identify but this one has been reported from this locality so that is good enough for me.

Pictures 9 and 10 show the local endemic form of Helichrysum intermedium which used to be called Helichrysum selago var tumidum. It may or may not be distinct a species in its own right. It is confined to the cliffs of Sandymount and Cape Saunders.

[Maggi Young]

David, what with these shots and  Toolie's tales of dodgy screes and roaming hunters, I begin to see why your countrymen invented bungee jumping--- you're all  crazy!
Wonderful pictures, though!

[Anthony Darby]

I'm with Maggi. Smashing pictures David. Took me a while to focus in on the orchid flower. Is it that thing that looks like a dead beetle? Wierd or wot? Is it in cultivation?

[David Lyttle]

Sandymount is a bit of an anomalous as it has number of plants that can be though of as alpine growing on the coast. Possibly after the last glaciation these plants retreated to more severe sites that could not support forest hence the current presence of Helichrysum intermedium.

A plant confined to the coast is Linum monogynum.

Also found in coastal sites is the tiny forget-me-not Myosotis pygmaea var pygmaea.

Another plant that is common here is the small daisy Lagenifera pumila.

And coming soon to a supermarket near you.

[Maggi Young]

Like the lamb in tussock, must be an old NZ recipe, I prefer mine in a rosemary gravy.

The Lagenifera daisy is a new one to me, good foliage, too. I like daisies.

[David Lyttle]

Anthony, New Zealand orchids are cultivated only by a few specialists. Generally they are small and not particularly showy compared with tropical orchids. As a cautionary tale some Czech collectors  were convicted in the Courts and got done severely in a financial way several years ago when they were caught leaving the country with  native orchids. It is not that most species of NZ orchids are particularly rare or endangered especially compared to other NZ plants that are freely exported and traded. For some quirky bureaucratic reason New Zealand as signatory to the CITES convention nominated only orchids as plants worth protecting.

I am posting a picture of Corybas cheesemanii  taken in beech forest on the West Coast that gives you a better idea of what Corybas flowers look like.

Maggi, The Lagenifera is the perhaps the closest thing we have to Bellis (a poor cousin) and if you are really interested seed could be obtained.

[Maggi Young]

All those little cheesemen look like wee aliens; easy to see the attraction to the collector.
david, I would be delighted to get some seed of the Lagenifera, in the fullness of time, if you would be so kind. I'd like to add it to a raised bed of Nzers. I'll email my postal address to you.
Cheers,
Maggi

[hadacekf]

I am always happy, if I see pictures of New Zealand. Thank you. I like the friendly people, mountains and plants. Here are some of my memories.

[Paddy Tobin]

Dave, David and Franz,

It would be very difficult to surpass the photographs you three have presented over the past few posts. A visit to NewZealand would be a tremendous experience and one I surely would love to undertake. In the meantime, many thanks for bringing me as close as I possibly could without travelling.

Dave - your photos show what a truly wonderful country New Zealand is. The scenery is beautiful but definitely on the wild side. You were wise to take off in the Toyota.

David - tongue in cheek, I was about to ask you to go back and collect come seed from those helychrysum plants on the cliff face.

Franz - what fabulous plants. The aciphlla especially are truly magnificent (personal preference!)

Many thanks to you all, really enjoyed reading your comments and viewing the photographs. Great stuff.

Paddy

[Lesley Cox]

Great pictures everyone. When were you in New Zealand Franz? When will you come back?

Ian, don't let those Cantabrians monopolise all your free time here. You MUST come south as well. Some of our Aussie friends will be here too and Dave is already lining up trips I'm sure. And yes, we'll all keep posting pictures. Next weekend we all (Dave, David, Susan and I) go to the Borland Saddle area near Lake Monowai in western Southland, with others from Otago Alpine Garden Group. Dave and David will take pictures of the plants, Susan will be in charge of bottles and I'll have the cake. A great time will be had by all.

David didn't mention that his pictures of Sandymount and Cape Saunders are actually in (part of) the city of Dunedin along with penguin and royal albatross colonies and large areas of mountain, river, lake and forest. This odd situation arose back in the 80s I think when various local government areas were amalgamated and Dunedin had large wild and rural areas attached to it. So even though the city has approx 120,000 inhabitants, in area, it is one of the biggest cities in the world.

[Lesley Cox]

The Corybas species can be grown in quite deep shady spots in the garden. I have a friend in one of the Dunedin hill suburbs who has a patch which came in with some leaf mould collected in a bushy area near Manapouri. I have had both Thelymitra longifolia and the little green bird orchid Chiloglottis cornuta introduced the same way, as seed in pine bark.

The tiny and insignificant orchid mentioned above, Microtis unifolia, is pictured below. Most of the foliage is an Allium species in a pot. The microtis leaf is the one going sideways toward the right. The flowers are so small as to be almost invisible, just that little bit attached to the tops of the seed capsules.

[Susan]

This is not exactly flora but fauna, on the Otago Peninsula. Late last year members of our family won a quiz night, put on to raise funds for the local volunteer fire brigade at Portobello.  First prize was donated by a local wildlife tour company, Elm Tours.  We took our trip last week.  The following are a few of the wildlife as Lesley says, within the city boundary.  The penguins fish during the day and come in towards dusk, hence the lack of good daylight, plus it was a misty day. You are not allowed to go too close to the sea lions for a variety of reasons, one being the Dept of Conservation rules and the other because they can travel at 20km an hour on land if you get between them and anything they might be interested in.

[Susan]

We then went on a bit of a hike around to another beach, this was a tour only for the fit,  where we saw a colony of fur seals.  They were all in the process of rearing and bearing their young.  Just missed the birth of a baby but watched fascinated while a huge gull fought with the mother over the placenta.  Then we went around to the Royal Albatross Colony at Taiaroa Head.  I have been there on numerous occasions but have never seen them in flight.  This time, as we were about to depart, a wind started to blow and out of the mist came 4 albatross, swooping overhead.  The birds in the colony are currently sitting on eggs and there are viewing platforms so when they are hatched, if the nests are in view one can see the chicks being reared.  This is the only mainland colony in the world, and numbers are dropping as they tend to  get caught in long line fishing that takes place in the Southern Ocean.

[KentGardener]

Susan and all

thank you so much for sharing your adventures with us - a fascinating and most enjoyable account of nature on the other side of the world.

with many thanks

John

[mark smyth]

It's good to see NZ plants. Do I see an invasion of Trilobites? Or whatever invaded the first Star Tek?