NZ Field Trips 2009

[David Lyttle]

Hi everyone,

Thank you all for your kind comments. Dave Toole initially showed me the location of Celmisia philocremna plants. The Eyre Mountains are home to a number of other endemic species including Ranunculus scrithalis, Ranunculus piliferus, Celmisia thomsonii and Aciphylla spedenii that I have yet to see. Finding them would involve some fairly hard travelling so next year perhaps. Weather is also a factor.

Cliff,

I was not roped on for the Celmisia philocremna picture to which you allude. The actual plant is visible in the first picture of the series and can be approached up the steep grassy slope on the right. I have re-posted the picture and marked the approximate camera position with an X. I used a tripod and everything including myself was fairly precariously balanced above the drop. The picture of Pascale eating her lunch and looking out over the valley was taken up in the little saddle above the crag; there a second
crag that rises steeply above the saddle with more plants growing on it. I crossed through the saddle and traversed round the bottom of the lower outcrop photographing plants as I went. The country is quite steep not easy to move round in. To reach the site we traversed across some fairly rough screes. There were some interesting plants growing on them but these southern screes do not have as many specialised plants as are found on the Canterbury screes further north. The local vegetable sheep is Raoulia buchananii which is confined to the southern part of the SoUth Island. Like most vegetable sheep it prefers to be anchored on rock outcrops rather than growing in a mobile scree.

2 Raoulia buchananii cushion
3 Raoulia buchananii with flowers, The flowers are red.
4 Colony of Raoulia buchananii
5 Hybrid between Raoulia buchananii and Leucogenes grandiceps growing in Raoulia cushion. (or that is what I think it is - it is a bigeneric hybrid) Such hybrids have been recorded between Leucogenes and  number of Raoulia species.

[David Lyttle]

Some more pictures from Mt Bee

1 A little plant of Helichrysum filicaule growing in a crevice in a rock. This species is inconspicuous at the best of times and usually grows amongst grass so is not particularly photogenic.
2. Stellaria roughii. It does not seem to form the rounded clumps here as it does in Canterbury. There are a few stems here and there in the scree but I found nothing bigger than this plant.
3. Hebe propinqua  If growing under favourable conditions unchecked it form a nice rounded shrub as do many other Hebes
4. Hebe propinqua flowering branches.
5, 6 Gentiana montana ( that is what I have called it) It may be Gentiana bellidifolia but it looks a bit different from the forms of this species that I am familiar with.
7 A purple foliaged form of the above
8 Aciphylla aff horrida 'lomondi'  This species has not been formally named and is a most stunning architectural plant.The key says that Aciphylla horrida has stipules. Following a rather dangerous maneuver I managed to extract a leaf from one plant and found it did not have stipules. Later I found a plant with leaves that had stipules. Aciphyllas do not appear to have read the Flora of NewZealand. Only a few plants of this species flowered this year.
9 The same species with an inflorescence.
10 Aciphylla glaucescens. This species has finely-divided glaucous-blue foliage. In contrast to the previous species nearly all of the plants of  Aciphylla glaucescens had flowered.

[Eric Locke]

Looking forward to my visit soon   

[Maggi Young]

Looking forward to my visit soon   

"Soon", Eric? You're not off down there for their winter ,are you? 

[t00lie]

Quote

"Dave,
We happen to know what you are doing with chains and padlocks in the wild, but newcomers to the forum MIGHT be slightly suspicious (especially when you mention that your solo trips are beginning to worry your lovely wife ...  )?    Shocked Shocked Shocked Grin"
« Last Edit: April 17, 2009, 10:06:53 PM by ranunculus »

End of quote.

Not to worry Cliff--i was unable to locate the said items while up country today so it looks like a new set of security gear for the bike.

As expected there was very little still flowering and anything in seed ,(other than the Gentians), was badly infested with insects.

A couple of interesting finds however ,living in amongst the tussock vegetation....

The shell of a giant NZ snail--Powelliphanta spedenii ssp spedenii---a nocturnal carnivore.

2nd pic is of a beetle that had a wonderful colouring to it's body---green on black.It looked to have a good set of pincers .......


Cheers Dave.



 

[kiwi]

After reading David's post on Sawcut gorge some while back, I went in this weekend to explore this incredible limestone creation. Not a lot flowering now but I could not believe the number of Pachystegia insignis plants in one area, must be incredible in the summer.
From here we went over to lake Brunner, here's a few local scenery shots.

[t00lie]

Nice shots Doug especially the Kea .

I see it's been caught at some stage and been banded.

Cheers dave.

[David Lyttle]

Hi Doug,

Quite a little tour you have taken us on. I am not quite sure how you got from the Waima Valley to Lake Brunner and then Castle Hill Basin. Sawcut Gorge is really impressive; it is difficult to do justice to the area with only photographs.

Did you see the Wahlenbergia mathewsii in the Gorge?

[kiwi]

Yes it was a bit of a zig zag journey, through the Lewis and back through the Arthurs pass.
I did get this photo of what I think is Wahlenbergia, but it was high up the bank and my zoom has not done it justice. Is this W. mathewsii?

[David Lyttle]

Yes- that is Wahlenbergia mathewsii. The distribution is from the Waima to the Clarence Valley on limestone.