TRIP REPORT : Waikanae wetlands

 Saturday 7 August 2004 :   Waikanae wetlands

Korthalsella salicornioides Mistletoe on its manuka host.   Photo: Richard Herbert.

We met at the Nga Manu Nature Reserve turn-off and went into the most recently fenced area on the Smith family’s farm, a manuka-coprosma / carex scrubland / sedgeland.   We climbed fences, forded an ephemeral stream, and passed lancewood and Olearia solandri.   We crossed a wet area (past Baumea tenax in flower), to a colony of cryptic Korthalsella salicornioides.   Later we crossed the farm to a site nearer the coast.

We passed manuka scrub on the way to the area of podocarp forest nearest to the Kapiti coast, nestled in plantation radiata.   This area is still exposed to the northwest winds and is dominated by kahikatea and pukatea.   After lunch we split into small groups and botanised the area.   Specimens of note were a very large hinau, abundant kiekie, Coprosma tenuicaulius and a several Coprosma hybrids.

From here we crossed dune country to the large Te Harakiki [sic] wetland and admired from a knob, the large expanses of raupo reedland, toetoe grassland and harakeke flaxland.

Participants:   Catherine Boyle, Bryan Halliday, Margaret Herbert, Richard Herbert, Chris Hopkins, Chris Horne, Michiyo and Yastaka Ikuta, Darryl Kee, Rodney Lewington, Pat McLean, Barbara Mitcalfe (co-leader), Tim Park (co-leader / scribe), Graham, Judy and Robbie Petterson, Penry Putnam, Darea Sherratt, Joyce Stretton, and Julia White.

Party about to set off again after lunch.   Photo: Richard Herbert.