Botanical Discoveries In Mt Cook Region

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32016, 17 June 1969, Page 8

Botanical Discoveries In Mt Cook Region

A number of plant species, including several ferns, which were not previously known in the park, have been discovered in a botanical survey of the 173,000acre Mount Cook national park which is being made by the Botany Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. According to Messrs H. Wilson and A. M. Buchanan, the park botanists, the survey aims to get a broad picture of the park’s vegetation, including both native and naturalised species, and to indicate policies on introduced plants and mammals. A high-altitude buttercup, Ranunculus g r a b a m i 1, hitherto known only on a few high peaks above the Tasman Glacier, has been discovered on Mount Lloyd at 7200 ft. This is believed to be the southernmost recording of the species. The plant was discovered in 1913 by Peter Graham, a well known Alpine guide, at 9000 ft on the Malte Brun Range. Another discovery was of the pineapple shrub, Dracophyllium menziesii, abundant In Fiordland and the southern part of South Westland, which was found at Fred Stream, just south of the park’s southern bound-

ary. It is the first time the shrub has been found in Canterbury. A single, ancient native cedar, kaikawaka or pahautea (Libocedrus bidwillii) has been found in the park north of the Hermitage. Previously, the species was believed to be absent from the eastern side of the Alps. A number of cedars have also been found in the Dobson Valley, south of the park, but the botanists can only speculate at the presence of the single cedar in the Hooker Valley.