NZ Field trips January 2007

[hadacekf]

Lesley,
I visited New Zealand in the year 1997. The 6 weeks on the south island were the most beautiful in my lives. I would visit immediately this beautiful country, but my health does not permit so large journeys.

[t00lie]

Otago Alpine Garden Club weekend visit to Fiordland.

A good friend and i travelled up yesterday to join forum members --Lesley, Susan More and David Lyttle on their clubs annual field trip.We two Southlanders felt privileged to have been invited to botanise with the 18 enthusiasts heading into the 'hills'.

The following is just a small offering of the day we spent with them as i'm sure there will be pics to follow and i don't want to steal their thunder so to speak.

Cheers Dave.

Ps.Lesley did bake a cake.Very nice it was indeed.

Pps.I was astonished to overhear Mrs More admit she knew all along that Lesley was not baking all those cakes she posted.--Maggi no doubt you will come up with an appropriate title to attach to Susans avatar.

[Maggi Young]

Thanks for starting us off with this latest NX trip, Dave. I hope pix of cake will follow from one of you?
I just adore Ranunculus lyallii and though we have not had much in the way of flowers here in aberdeen  (though one or two pals have managed a couple) I can still enjoy this plant every day by way of this lovely watercolour painting by our dear friend, the late Lawrence Greenwood, who, with his charming and elegant wife, Lillian, graced many an SRGC show and Discussion weekend both by their attendance and displays of super flower paintings. Lillian still pops up to Scotland on occasion to see us all, staying with her friends, Lynn and Michael Almond, who also have a collection of Lawrence's work.
Here is a photo of our painting of Ranunculus lyallii; the thumbnail will enlarge

The photo was taken with the glass in the picture, so the overall effect is somewhat paler than the real painting. It is a lovely representation of the plant, though, isn't it?

[Paddy Tobin]

Dave,

Here you are again, treating us to the fabulous treasures of the southern island and I, for one, am thoroughly pleased to have you post these photographs again.

The aciphylla are gorgeous but R. lyalii is simply out of this world. A friend of mine, who had been based at the National Botanic Gardens, Dublin, came back from N.Z. and simply raved about this plant. It was for her the most beautiful plant she had seen in N.Z. and one she recommended to us as one of the most beautiful plants she had ever seen.

The second photograph of R. lyalii, the one with the hand,  is very informative as it gives a sense of scale I hadn't appreciarted previously.

Unfortunately, as we say in Ireland, 'it died on me'.  I tried my best but managed to kill it.  I'll try again when I can find a source for the plant.

Many thanks, Dave, great photographs, really enjoy them. More at your convenience, please.

Paddy

[t00lie]

Wonderful painting Maggie.
I recall seeing some of Lawrence's pieces of art in one or two of the alpine bulletins of a year or three ? back--can't recall if they were SRGC or AGS .Simply marvellous.

Paddy--I must confess i can't keep R.lyallii either.I find seed i collect every season (including the hybrid with R. buchananii) germinates easily ,however aphids tend to attack the seedlings at this time of the year when i am often away from my garden. I have however been more vigilant this season and have many small healthy plants .

While i agree lyallii is beautiful ,the most spectacular one in my eyes is the yellow aff R. haastii ssp. pilifeus from the ST Mary Range in North Otago.The plants in this area have recently been recognised as a species in their own right.Unfortunately i have forgotten the new name,(duh!!!).
R. acraeus, according to my informant, IY.
David Lyttle upon his return to civilisation will be able to provide the full details.

I have a scan of a slide of the plants somewhere in the system --just gotta locate it.
Interestingly seed sown in march 05 germinated this spring .While these seedlings look okay they have been extremely slow in growth.

Cheers Dave.

[Lesley Cox]

My word Dave, you ARE on the ball. I've been home only for 2 hours! and haven't thought about pics yet.

I hope you and David and Susan do lots more of the higher plants because - I must admit it - due to my rather more comfortable shape, I didn't walk as far as the others. But had a fantastic day though, the best by far this summer with warm sunny conditions the whole day, hardly a breath of wind and perfect views of the Fiordland mountains in every direction.

I think Susan took a picture of the cake (Her David and I cut it, joined hands, wedding style) but though very good to eat, it was a plain choc cake, plainly iced. While it was mostly for Dave's birthday, he almost missed it because of not arriving until Saturday morning, instead of Friday night like the rest of us. His friend Marjorie was having her birthday actually yesterday so it served a double purpose.

I'll do some pics soon, probably sticking mostly to scenery, though I have to say Paddy, that seeing R. lyallii in the wild, its own natural habitat, must be one of life's great glories.

[Paddy Tobin]

Lesley,

I have only seen photographs of R. lyalii from a friend who went to NZ botanizing. She was madly in love with it, simply adored it so I can imagine the thrill of seeing it in the wild. A fabulous plant.

Dave, I feel a little consoled to hear you have had difficulty in growing it as well. It seems you are off to a more promising start this year and hopefully the young plants will continue to thrive and you will be postin photographs of it in your garden later on in the season.

Many thanks for the wonderful photographs. And Lesley, you say you will ONLY be posting photographs of the scenery - but they are lovely, great to see another country and with the speed with which Dave posts this is almost as good as live television when it first arrived. Also, seeing the scenery gives a good idea of the growing environment of the plants you post, something which is very interesting.

Must go out and take a photo of that Ranunculus creticus for you so you can see the size of the full plant. It's sunny here at the moment - what am I doing at this computer? Well, just finished lunch and taking a break. I was wheelbarrowing compost all morning.

Paddy

[David Lyttle]

Hi Dave, Hi Lesley
As I said at the time I was going to come down off the mountain only when I had no room left on my memory card or when the light failed, which ever came first.  Dave, I was not able to catch up with you again before you left to return to Invercargill.  Many thanks for your company  and showing me where the plants were located. I did make it back with over 190 images, 1256 MB does not go all that far on such an outstanding day that we had. After we separated the plants just kept on coming and we got pretty much to the top. We did not go along the ridge to the ultimate high point  which is 1645 metres. We settled for a slightly lower one at 1635 metres due to an excess off fresh air on the Borland side and the snow on the other side.

On the theme of Ranunculi which seem to be popular this evening
Ranunculus buchananii , Ranunculus lyallii and Ranunculus buchananii x lyalli.

Pictures from the top and a picture taken on the on the way down showing some of the innumerable small tarns lower down.

As for plants there were lots of them. A Chionohebe possibly ciliolata though it is hard to tell from the picture alone.

Astelia linearis which covered extensive ares in some places. Fruit was pretty sparse considering the mass of plants there.

[Paddy Tobin]

David,

The treats from NZ continue - many thanks, between you all it has been a wonderful  selection of images, truly enjoyable.

Ranunculus buchanii is indeed a very beautiful plant. I find a clear white in a plant very attractive and though clear bright white can be difficult to photograph you have produced excellent images.

The astelia is very interesting. Astelia nervosa has become quite popular here over the past few years and grows with ease, bulks up very quickly, divides easily, remains evergreen and adds a new dimension to our gardens. The flowers are not particularly attractive, a brownish affair and I have not had fruit on any of my plants. I also grow another astelia which is much smaller, perhaps 8 inches in height and it again grows very easily here. Its name escapes me at present.

The views were fabulous, cool enough on the summit, I imagine.

Paddy

[David Lyttle]

Paddy,

Very pleased that you enjoyed the photographs. We had a magnificent day. It started off clear and sunny not ideal for plant photography especially for white flowers but later on the mist started coming over and conditions for photography were perfect with very little wind to move flowers about. Started off in shirt sleeves and shorts at 8.00am and finished the day at 6.00 pm still in shirt sleeves and shorts.

Astelia linearis is very abundant covering huge areas in a turf. I have not had any success growing it despite trying several times as all other Astelia species are very easy. It may be that it needs constantly damp conditions.

More images to come.

[Lesley Cox]

Superb pictures David. I didn't get high enough to R. buchananii and can only say "Oh God, oh God" in response to your image. I can imagine Cliff Booker going quietly out of his mind. Interesting variation in the flowers on different seedlings of the hybrid.

Good to see your own visage on the Forum too. I guess Anna took the picture?  (Anna, for others, is a delightful and attractive German girl, currently working as a volunteer in the Dunedin Botanic Gardens. For one so slim and fit, she had an amazing liking for cakes with chocolate in them.)

[Susan]

I have just been told that I have posted my last post twice.  It still hasn't come up, but then I do have a very slow dial-up, so here goes with a few more from our day out.
It was just so cool to have our lunch alongside  the melting snow, surrounded by the most beautiful collection of Ranunculus,with  lyalli, buchananii and their various crosses.  Coming down was interesting as the snow tussock is very slippery and sitting down and using the grass as  a roller coaster seemed the best method.  When we finally arrived at the car park there was some discussion about Dave's top - some thought maybe he had washed it with his favourite red shirt.  The whole point of that photo is of course to show that the Celmisias grow like weeds around the car park.

[Susan]

Here goes again with first posting.   Having found out that there were 16 species of Celmisia seen, I am somewhat reticent to name anything! Firstly, Lesley, with my husband, David (a very popular name for those attending Alpine treks apparently), cutting Dave Toole's birthday cake.   Then a series of photos of the countryside we saw.  We thoroughly enjoyed the day.  It was perfect weather and the privilege of being able to walk through and I have to say, unavoidably on,thousands  of Celmisias, Anisotomes (one of my favourites), Drosera, Hebe, Aciphyllas and that old favourite, many more,  was wonderful.

[Susan]

Just a couple more. Do not know what the bug is in the palm of the hand but maybe Anthony does. It was a little bit larger, but not much, than the sandflies that we were all plagued by during our stay at the Lodge itself.  Up in the mountains they were less frequently encountered.

On our way home we went to have a look at Lake Monowai which was raised for hydro electric power, I believe, in the 1920's and at that time no attention was paid to the effects that this would have. The trees were just flooded and left to rot and still look appalling.  Many year later many of us were protesters to stop Lake Manapouri from being raised in a similar manner. Public opinion swayed the decision and it is still there in its pristine glory.  It has forests down to the edge of the water and is very beautiful and largely unspoilt. So far huge developers have not moved in and ruined it.

[hadacekf]

I am always happy to see NZ plants, but I am unhappy because they do not grow in my garden.