The Canterbury Botanical Society visited 135 hectares of LINZ administered river bed near Te Pirita in September 2015 to see the newly discovered specimens of the tree daisy Olearia adenocarpa (Nationally Critical).
The wide flat recent river terrace on the the north bank of the Rakaia river is dotted with kowhai trees, low-growing matagouri and extensive open areas of grasses and ...more ↓
The Canterbury Botanical Society visited 135 hectares of LINZ administered river bed near Te Pirita in September 2015 to see the newly discovered specimens of the tree daisy Olearia adenocarpa (Nationally Critical).
The wide flat recent river terrace on the the north bank of the Rakaia river is dotted with kowhai trees, low-growing matagouri and extensive open areas of grasses and mossfield. The stoniest areas hold onto mat chickweeds and mat daisies.
The Botanical Society members looked closely through the carpet of woolly moss and found other small rare plants: prickly couch, dichiondras, creeping and leafless pōhuehue. These plants are hosts to their own species of moths or butterflies.
Brian Patrick caught one of the moths seen flying on the day. He later reported that it is an early-spring emerging species of matagouri – indigenous grasslands of Canterbury, which is nowadays not well known as these sorts of communities are now rare. Tingena griseata, described by Butler in 1877 is effectively immobile as the female with slightly shortened wings is reluctant to fly. This species is truly indicative of these original dry grasslands.
The Botanical Society are campaigning to see the area managed by the Department of Conservation to maintain the the dryland plants and animals. “It is the largest area of natural river terrace left on the Canterbury Plains and our last chance to see what first European settlers saw when they first travelled over large areas of the Plains”.
The biggest threat to the site is the Land Transfer Act 1952 which allows neighbouring landowners to "accrete" Crown land with little regard to the biodiversity values. In fact, the word "biodiversity" is not to be found in the 2013 Guideline for Accretion Claims
(see https://www.google.co.nz/?gws_rd=ssl#q=land+transfer+act+1955+accrete). This ECAN report tallies up how much river margin land has been developed as farmland. It is still happening.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dvcggbb25quwdt7/land-use-change-margins-lowland-rivers.pdf?dl=0 less ↑
Canterbury BOTSOC field trip to Te Pirita
alice_shanks
created this project on December 14, 2016
