Looking across Motukarara to Te Waihora (Lake Ellesmere), with Kaitorete Spit behind from Banks Peninsula

Before I start, a big thank you to Wildlands consultancy scientists Brian and Mellissa for being such good guides and sharing their knowledge.  Also a reminder that this Saturday, 17th October, we have a special field day into the army grounds at West Melton.

Apparently we had around 30 people at Kaitorete Spit and the weather was kind. Kaitorete is one of those rare places in the world, where a significant part of the precipitation comes from the plants catching moisture out of the sea fog, that so often pushes in over the land. On Saturday, while the fog was there all day it mostly held off and the chill breeze out of the fog on our south was the perfect match for the heat of the sun from the north. It’s a strange place, the spit, one of the few dune systems in NZ not yet dominated by marram and too cold for spinifex, so the only dune builder present is pingao, the golden sand sedge building small tufted dunes. From a distance pingao is rust red but up close deep orange through to yellow – green. Sought after in weaving for it’s natural golden-yellow leaves it is traditionally used in tukutuku and kete for it’s contrasting colour but can also be used on it’s own.  Pingao had a scientific name change in 2010 from it’s own genus (Desmoschoenus to a South African genus, Ficinia, so it is now Ficinia spiralis.

I missed the start but found everyone in a council reserve at the end of Hill View Rd,  Birdling’s Flat.  At this north end of the spit where the beach gravel piles up against the volcanic mass of Banks Peninsula, there is little sand as there has been insufficient time for it to accumulate.  The reserve is  a fairly weedy site dominated by introduced grasses and sorrel but with some interesting plants all the same.  Prostrate shrubs of Coprosma propinqua var prostrata and C. crassifolia and a porcupine shrub Melicytus sp. interwoven with the scrambler Muehlenbeckia complexa.  Patches of silver hair grass made a shiny fuzz over the ground in hollows both natural and where a horse had left cavities in the fragile soil.  Silver patches of the cushion daisy, Raoulia australis, burnt on the south by salt and intermixed with the orange bumps of Scleranthus uniflorus spread over the stones in hollows and nearer the shore.  Two horizontal shrubs are also here, a prostrate broom, Carmichaelia appressa, endemic to the spit, and what for all the world looks like a bundle of dead twigs, the at risk (declining) Muehlenbeckia ephedroides.  Problem weeds are a collection of legumes (clovers and vetches) that have the potential to shift the fertility in favour of exotic grasses.  There has been an intensive hand-weeding exercise here in recent years removing an array of exotic species from the beach and the contrast with the area to be started on this is year is profound.  I can imagine the bach owners won’t be too impressed as they see the vibrant display of South African coastal daisies and succulents get pulled out, but go they must if we are to keep the unique values of Kaitorete Spit intact.

Canterbury Botanical Society inspect coastal plants at Birdling’s Flat. Prostrate Coprosma, Muehlenbeckia and Melicytus shrubs mingle in the foreground, pingao in the distance

cushion daisy, Raoulia australis like mini dunes salt-burnt on the seaward side at Birdling’s Flat

cushion daisy, Raoulia australis and orange Scleranthus uniflorus

A race to cover the open sand, endemic prostrate broom, Carmichaelia appressa, with pohue, Muehlenbeckia complexa in pursuit

silver hair grass, Aira caryophyllea, in a horse’s hoof print

Dead twigs, Muehlenbeckia ephedroides, on beach gravel at Birdling’s Flat

One of several legume weeds, Vicia lutea, climbs over prostrate shrubs

A native shore groundsel, Senecio glaucophyllus basinudus, is restricted to Banks Peninsula and south to Dunedin.  A complex group in NZ there are  similar looking shore groundsel’s around the Pacific.

Pretty but just plain wrong, The background has been weeded and has a much higher number of native species.

A mass of pretty weeds, gradually covering the leafless stems of Muehlenbeckia ephedroides. In time the large leaved succulent (Hottentot fig, Carpobrotus edulis) will form huge mats excluding all other species.

After lunch we drove out onto the spit, through the locked gate (Brian had a key) and out into the Scientific Reserve.  Highlights for me were just being amongst so much pingao again, the native succulent, Crassula sieberiana, a native daphne in the sand hollows, Pimelea prostrata and a few very rare woolly heads, not flowering and not yet described scientifically it goes by a tag name denoting its restriction to the spit – Craspedia ‘Kaitorete’.  There was also a native bedstraw Galium propinquum very similar to the form restricted to limestone talus, G. ‘calcicole’, and as it turned out some botanists think this one may also be another species in need of description and a proper name.

Reserve entry sign

driving into the reserve

A native dune grass, Zoysia minima.

sand blow, populated by native daphne, Pimelea prostrata, and Raoulia australis

cushion daisy, Raoulia australis, stabilises sand

Close up of Raoulia australis (silver) slumming it with Galium propinquum whose white flowers release a delicate perfume. The latter is a relative of that most annoying garden weed, cleavers or bedstraw.

Pingao, Ficinia spiralis, golden leaves for weaving.

Inspecting a Pimelea prostrata

View back to Birdlings Flat at the southern flanks of Banks Peninsula

A native succulent, Crassula sieberiana

Evidence of Maori occupation, oven stones on a sand dune

Maori oven stones (charred) with fresh greywacke beach stones in a dune hollow

Undescribed, endemic woolly head, Craspedia ‘Kaitorete’

Not much difference when sheep, hares and rabbits are excluded

Pingao seems to be struggling here, is that due to disturbance by sheep?

Back tracking for a start we then drove out on the north side  to the Waihora Scientific Reserve on the Te Waihora (Lake Ellesmere) side of the spit.  Here there are dryland plants on ground which is mostly dry and baked (facing north) but when the lake is high can be underwater.  Between the dryland and the lake a thick band of the divaricate shrub, coastal ribbonwood, which grows in the saline soils alongside coastal waterways was quietly flowering.  More orange cushions but this time a completely different plant, Colobanthus brevisepalous, with the sweet scent of flowering Raoulia monroi, another mat daisy and hundreds of diminutive plants of Daucus glochidiatus, a rare native carrot (obviously not rare here).

rushes and shore ribbonwood line the shore of Te Waihora, Lake Ellesmere

diminutive flowers on shore ribbonwood, Plagianthus divaricatus

Dryland botany “Here be something and it’s very, very small”

Bunches of flowers like miniature shaving brushes, the mat daisy, Raoulia monroi perfumed the air with honey

barely 2cm high, the native carrot, Daucus glochidiatus

A doppleganger for the Scleranthus cushions at Birdling’s Flat, this one is Colobanthus brevisepalus or so I am told

That native carrot again, Daucus glochidiatus, nestled between 2 pebbles

a mat forming button daisy, Leptinella serrulata, nationally endangered and another Muehlenbeckia, this one is M. axillaris more often seen in the high mountains. Both make nice manageable groundcovers for gravel paths.