TRIP REPORT : Belmont Regional Park - Korokoro Dam

4 August 2007

Nikau.   Illustration by Eleanor Burton

This winter walk in a corner of Belmont Regional Park started from Oakleigh Street and finished at Cornish Street, a relatively short distance, but the bush on the slopes down to Korokoro Dam, and the valley to Petone held our interest until late afternoon.

The whole area is regenerating bush, generally dominated by tawa.   Here and there are mature rimu and miro.   Titoki, karaka, pukatea, kohekohe and nikau are represented by adult trees.   In the understorey is a good range of Wellington native flora with Cyathea and Dicksonia aplenty.   Pleasing finds were young and not so young five-finger and pate, a sure sign that possum control has been effective.

The list of native vascular plants found list runs to 168 species.   This included Adelopetalum (=Bulbophyllum) tuberculatum, found by Chris Hopkins who had seen it in the area a decade before.   This orchid is on rock, track side - well down Korokoro Stream valley.

We added black and white maire to the list from previous visits over the past fifteen years, and also Dracophyllum longifolium, forest cabbage tree and lowland horopito.

Native species we had hoped to find, but did not, included Winika cunninghamii and Hymenophyllum flexuosum.   These had been seen previously but even the promise of chocolate fish was not enough to entice a sight of them.

The area we walked through had its share of weeds.   In the stream and immediately below the dam, there are garden plants, presumably washed down garden rubbish tipped “over the bank” from the subdivisions upstream.   Tradescantia, montbretia, ehrharta and selaginella are worrying in that they spread readily and smother other species.   Japanese honeysuckle and banana passionfruit are also of concern in the area around the dam.

Participants :   Bev Abbott, Barry Dent, Sue Freitag, Dave Holey, Chris Hopkins, Chris Horne, Sheena Hudson, Sheelagh Leary (co-leader), Rodney Lewington (co-leader and scribe), Barbara Mitcalfe, Syd Moore, Gail Mosey, Grant Roberts, Darea Sherratt.