TRIP REPORT : Gracefield scrub

 Saturday :   1 March 2008

Rosie Doole points out a nurseryweb spider nest on Coprosma tenuicaulis.   Photo: Rodney Lewington.

This area of regenerating bush lies alongside Wainuiomata Hill Road, on the Wainuiomata side of the hill.   It is part of the corridor linking East Harbour Regional Park to the Eastern Hutt hills.   A small swamp lies on the valley floor, and perhaps indicates the species of wetland plants that existed in the Wainuiomata Valley before it was drained for farming.   Though the swamp contains no open water, a thick sward of Carex forms the main groundcover.   One plant of note in the swamp is swamp buttercup / Ranunculus macropus, status Gradual Decline.   Another plant uncommon here is Olearia virgata.   In contrast on the valley floor, narrow-leaved mahoe is abundant.   Also here, the next sequence of canopy trees was either emergent, or present as seedlings; e.g. kahikatea, hinau, and tawa.   In hills above the swamp we saw a healthy population of waterfall fern / Blechnum colensoi on a site we thought too dry for it.   Elsewhere amongst the regenerating scrub we saw seedlings or saplings of rimu, miro, northern rata and tawa.   On the ridge east of the swamp is a mature forest of black beech and hard beech.   These areas have escaped the fires that have started from the hill road.   We hope that since the hill road’s reconstruction and widening of the firebreak at the top of the valley, fire is past history.

Participants :   Rosie Doole, Jill & Ian Goodwin, Chris Hopkins (leader / scribe), Chris Horne, Brenda Johnston, Rodney Lewington, Barbara Mitcalfe, Mick Parsons, Darea Sherratt.