TRIP REPORT : Summer Camp – Ruahine Range and Hawke’s Bay

 28 December 2005 – 6 January 2006

Our summer field trip, based at Camp Wakarara, RD 1, Ongaonga, near the foothills of the Ruahine Range, was an all-round success.   We thank the following:
•   Joyce and Harold Stretton for finding the facility – it proved ideal
•   Julie Clarkson, custodian, for her care and attention, including warning us about the severe gales we could expect
•   Neil Grant, DOC Napier office, for a low-impact collecting permit, and brochures about Scenic Reserves
•   Marie Taylor, QEII National Trust Regional Representative, for advice on sites to botanise, and for leading us in two Open Space Covenants
•   Helen Swinburn, Neil Turnbull, and Craig and Anne Preston, for permission to botanise their respective covenants
•   Gordon and Sheelagh for organising an excellent menu
•   Dr Barry Sneddon for supplying copies of Tony Druce’s archival plant lists 119 and 161, held at Te Papa
•   Graeme and Gael for supplying plant lists
•   Karen for giving a talk about some of the taonga, made of natural fibres, held at Hawke’s Bay Museum, where she is Registrar
•   Warren Dykes and Ken Mills, DOC / Ongaonga, for leading our convoy up to the end of No Man’s Road
•   The 35 BotSoccers who did their share of the chores, participated in the plant ID sessions, and formed a talented choir on New Year’s Eve
•   Rodney and Gordon for preparing the accounts
Chris Horne for work on maps for each day.

Day 1, 29/12/05.   Sunrise Hut & Armstrong Saddle, Ruahine Range.   Map U22.

Throughout the whole of the Dec–Jan Trip, A.P.D.’s 1992 comprehensive plant list for the Ruahine Ranges was extremely useful, each party member having been issued with a copy.   On this day, a fine forecast enabled a quick decision to tramp to the tops via the historic, well-graded track to Sunrise Hut.   Early on, we were intrigued to see a specially designed, protective cage of chicken netting mounted on a beech trunk, with holes for birds to enter to take nectar and in the process pollinate the threatened, palatable Peraxilla tetrapetala mistletoe inside.   Before long we were admiring a profusion of trackside species such as Euphrasia cuneata, and Pterostylis patens with its swept-back lateral sepals, ready for take-off.   Above the bushline we botanised a seepage area and a small tarn with extensive mats of Celmisia glandulosa.

Barbara Mitcalfe

Luzuriaga parviflora.   Photo: Jeremy Rolfe.

Day 2, 30/12/05.   Longview Hut, Ruahine Range.   Map U22.

Off the end of Kashmir Road, the track to the hut climbs quite steeply.   The forest here has been burnt, leaving only the spars of old trees.   In this open environment, many light-loving species of alpine plants live at much lower altitudes than usual.   Plants such as the blue harebell / Wahlenbergia albomarginata, the daisies, Celmisia spectabilis and C. incana, and the tall eyebright, Euphrasia cuneata, were in full flower, and admired by us all.   One of the shy flowering orchids, usually an attractive blue, Thelymitra hatchii, was pink and fully open.   The tall grass attracted much attention - was it Cortaderia fulvida or C. richardii? The resolution of this continued back at camp with the help of the Flora.   The consensus was that it was C. fulvida.

Around a rocky outcrop halfway up the slope, a surprise find was lantern berry / Luzuriaga parviflora on an exposed southern face.   This plant is normally found in dense, damp bush, usually accompanied by mosses and liverworts.

Higher up, above the level of the hut, the bright yellow Maori onion / Bulbinella gibbsii had nearly finished flowering.   Another interesting find was a red sedge with curly leaf tips and hidden spikelets - Carex druceana.   The strong wind that rose drove everyone back down to the cars.

Gael Donaghy

Day 3, 31/12/05.   Te Whiti o Tu and Turnbull covenants.   Map U22.

This covenant on a farmland promontory, now totals 11.4 ha.   Helen Swinburn, a farmer all her life, whose story is featured in NZ Country Women by Michelle Moir (Tandem Press 1997), accompanied us, with her poodle / labrador cross, Nicola.   Marie Taylor, Hawke’s Bay QEII Trust rep. who had recently overseen the addition of 1.185 ha. of bush to the covenant, also came.   She told us that possum control is done, and done well, by Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, funded in part by profits from Napier Port Authority.

The covenant encompasses an old pa site, Te Whiti o Tu, on the promontory which rises to 340m a.s.l.   Part of it is still grazed, keeping the pa earthworks under grass, which preserves them better than bush.   Totara, known to be c. 100 years old, dot the pasture.   Ted Abraham told us that when land is first cleared, totara seedlings germinate and grow fast enough to compete with rank grasses.

Below the pa site is a 100m bluff, high above the Waipapa River.   In the battle of Te Whiti o Tu c. 1831, defeated Maori were thought to have thrown themselves over this precipice to their death, to escape torture and enslavement.

The remaining sides of the promontory are steep and covered in bush, with many shrubs, ferns and lianes typical of the area.   Sophora tetraptera / kowhai and totara were conspicuous in the canopy.   Near the bluff edge where no one would usually venture, one specimen of a different, finer-leaved kowhai, Sophora microphylla, was discovered.   Also of inerest, Blechnun triangularifolium was found along the bank of the farm road through the covenant.

When Helen Swinburn joined us for dinner for one night, she was thrilled to learn more about the relative uncommonness of Sophora microphylla in her area, and to see a leaf under the microscope.

Carex trifida.   Photo: Jeremy Rolfe.

Julia Stace

Day 4, 1/1/06.   Yeomans Track, Wakarara Range.   Maps U22 and U21.

We drove to the end of Wakarara Road, and parked near the braided Makaroro River.   After fording it, and walking through pine forest, we entered impressive indigenous forest on the old logging road.   Felling was stopped in 1956, and recovery is well-advanced.   At the southern part of the track, there is dense red beech regeneration, with young totara, rimu and miro.   Further north, the regeneration is less advanced, with wineberry and young rimu abundant A feature at the north end of our trip was the restored, historic Ellis Hut, a.k.a. Murderer’s Hut.

Chris Horne

Day 5, 2/1/06.   Monckton and A’Deanes Bush Scenic Reserves.   Map U22.

This is a 38-ha reserve on Makaretu Road, considered by Sheila Cunningham (Hawkes Bay for the Happy Wanderer) to be the best remaining example of the original forest in the Ruataniwha Plains.

The notice board at the gate draws attention to the part which totara - so evident as one approaches - has played in NZ’s history.   Maori used the timber for carving, waka and making containers; and the outer bark was used to splint fractures and the inner bark for roofing.   Its popularity with Pakeha for building has contributed to the loss of many trees, but the reserve boasts an enormous survivor which needs at least seven people to encircle it with their arms.   The forest was dark, with a high canopy of mature kahikatea, matai, miro, totara, white maire and hinau, and a big pokaka.   On the ground were seedlings of all of these, but Blechnum filiforme, Microsorum scandens, small coprosmas and many lianes dominated.   Diplazium australe and Carex trifida were plants seldom seen by Wellingtonians.   Selaginella, old man’s beard and blackberry are unwelcome invaders.   About 10 km from the 165 ha A’Deane’s Reserve on the Ashley Clinton Road, Monckton Scenic Reserve is situated on the Tangarewai Stream bank, providing shelter, barbecue, toilet and swimming facilities.   A good, benched and stepped 2 km track is easily walked in less than the two hours quoted on the noticeboard.   The reserve is a mixed podocarp and beech remnant, rich in kahikatea, totara, rimu, matai, tawa and kowhai.   The track climbs and descends to the stream which is shallow and clear, running between banks of Pleiocene sandstone and siltstone.   A large, “ecclesiastical grove of kahikatea dominated part of the track, and a flowering Lophomyrtus obcordata caught everyone’s eye.   Aspleniums were much discussed, as many were seen, ranging from small Asplenium hookerianum to larger A. gracillimum but their taxonomy is still under consideration.

We saw old man’s beard, pine trees, cotoneaster, Himalayan honeysuckle, and evidence of over-enthusiastic track cutters.   Plant roots had been damaged and paths made unnecessarily wide.

Rae Collins

Raukaua anomalus.   Photo: Jeremy Rolfe.

Day 6, 3/1/06.   C. & A. Preston’s Covenant.   Map U22.

Marie Taylor, Hawke’s Bay QEII Trust rep., led us to Craig and Ann Preston’s property.   It has two QEII covenants, 25 ha. and 33 ha. Mangataura Stream flows through the length of the covenant.   At its midpoint, a geological boundary divides marine siltstone and greywacke zones.   Alluvial flats have developed downstream of this boundary, but upstream of it, the stream has cut a 30 m deep gorge into the soft siltstone zone.

The fern Blechnum triangularifolium / Green Bay kiokio veils the shady siltstone faces within the gorge and a large-leaved ourisia (O. macrophylla subsp. robusta?) not in flower, was seen on the bare siltstone faces too.   On the stream banks a large, yellow-flowered composite Senecio (rufiglandulosus?) was plentiful, though we had missed the best of its flowering.

Away from the stream the covenant was dry, and ferns, particularly filmy ferns, were poorly represented.   Likewise, rata vines, epiphytic astelias and collospermums and perching orchids were absent or rare.   As always, small-leaved shrubs were cause for much discussion, with Coprosma rigida getting attention, newer members being advised to look for a fringe of hairs within the leaf notch, and a constriction often present between the pyrenes in the didymous fruit.   Other small-leaved shrubs seen were Raukaua anomalus and Melicytus micranthus / manakura.

Nothofagus solandri subsp. solandri / black beech was prevalent on the dry, west-facing slopes and a group of Dacrycarpus dacrydioides / kahikatea was noted at the bottom of one gully.

The covenant has now been completely fenced off, but an older fenceline on the lower half of the covenant is suspect because cattle are gaining access to the covenant through it - which negates all the good work done to fence it off.

Chris Hopkins

Day 7, 4/1/06.   Swamp Track, Ruahine Range .   Map U22.

We escaped incipient hut-fever on this drizzly day, and from the end of North Block Road, botanised this area near Triplex Hut.   The canopy is dominated by tall red and black beech, rimu and kahikatea, and the understorey has often dense crown fern / Blechnum discolor.   We saw red-flowered mistletoe / Peraxilla tetrapetala, studied five small-leaved coprosmas, C. microphylla, C. rhamnoides, C. rigida, C. tayloriae, and C. tenuicaulis, and three species of Raukaua - R. anomalus, R. edgerleyi, and R. simplex.   Stumpy tree fern / Dicksonia lanata was new to some of us.   In three hours, we listed 105 species of indigenous vascular plants in this beautiful plant community, despite rain and sleet making the paper mushy, even under an umbrella!

Chris Horne

Aporostylis bifolia.   Photo: Jeremy Rolfe.

Day 8, 5/1/06.   No Mans Road, Ruahine Range.   Map U21.

Napier Conservancy DOC staff Ken Mills and Warren Dykes took those of us without 4WD, to the end of No Mans Road, a drive of c. 2 hours.   Ruahine Hut provided a welcome scroggin stop where Jill produced a much admired Ruahine map dating back to c. 1950, from her father’s collection.   On the tops, in cloud, driving rain, and exposure conditions, we botanised briefly, noting among Chionochloa rubra and C. pallens, a fine, emergent, flowering taramea, its bright orange stipules almost the only colourful sight in the drab, wet, dracophyllum landscape.   Orchids such as Aporostylis bifolia, Prasophyllum colensoi and Simpliglottis cornuta could be foumd sheltering under Gaultheria antipoda and Hebe odora.   One plant of what I believe to be Hebe corriganii (=H. macrocarpa var. corriganii on A.P.D.’s Ruahine list) was a first sighting for us.   I am growing on a tiny cutting for later ID.   The grasses, Hierochloe redolens, with elegantly drooping, silky tassels and Rytidospermum setifolium’s characteristic, bright orange anthers, accompanied us for most of the day, but freezing fingers made photography too difficult to capture such treats.

Participants : Ted Abraham, Susan Aitken, Tony Aldridge, Beth Andrews, Barbara Clark, Rae Collins, Gael Donaghy, Ian and Jill Goodwin, Bryan Halliday, Barbara Hammonds, Margaret and Richard Herbert, Chris Hopkins, Chris Horne, Sheena and Stuart Hudson, Rosalind Iles, Graeme Jane, Brenda Johnston, Gordon and Sheelagh Leary, Rodney Lewington, Barbara, Carraldo and Karen Mitcalfe, Syd Moore, Donella Moss, Emil Schmieg, Darea Sherratt, Val Smith, Hugh and Margaret Spencer, Julia Stace, Beryl Tuppen.

Barbara Mitcalfe

FOUND AT CAMP WAKARARA   Brown thermos flask without cup.   Contact Barbara Mitcalfe, ph 475 7149.