DAMAGE BY DEER

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 217, 10 June 1936, Page 6

DAMAGE BY DEER

Effect on Vegetation Emphasis on the damage being done to native plants by deer in many parts of the South Island was laid last night by Mr. J. Scott Thomson, E.L.S., F.C.S., of Dunedin, in an address he cave to the annual meeting of the Wellington Horticultural Society. “In some places the Hour ot the loiest is as bare as your hand through deer, he stated. . . Air. Thomson, u bottuiist ana joint author of several botanical works, spoke for nearly two hours on the plant covering of lite South Island. His lantern slides showed examples of vegetation ranging from that along shore fronts to specimens found on tue liigii* est: mountains, nearly alt being in colour. He said that there were 1430 species in the South Island, plus 324 hybrid groups. South Island possessed 50t> endemics. The occurrence of oxer 590 endemics unknown in the North Island was remarkable, for it was not long geologically since Cook Strait did not exist, and there was no water barrier to prevent plant distribution through New Zealand. The position could be contrasted with that of England and France, which were separated by a similar water stretch, but there were few plants peculiar only to England.

The South Island was the headquarters of the varied alpine Hora of New Zealand, mainly because it had large areas of mountain country in which plants had had time to become established. Alpine vegetation was generally more, plentiful on the shady sides of the ranges than on those which were sunny, and it was interesting that specimens of lichens found in the South inland had also been observed on the slopes of Mount Everest. Mr. Thomson, beginning at, the coasts and working up to the ranges, illustrated types of vegetation found in the South Island. He showed slides of sand-binding plants growing on the coasts and emphasised that where there were no such plants the sand moved inward, crushing vegetation in its path, which lie illustrated by showing forest trees buried, except for the tops, in Southland.

Showing estuary rushes round the shores of inland lakes, he said these must, have been carried there by birds or left, when the laud was raised. Illustrating the effects of wind on vegetation, he showed a ribbon wood stripped of leaves and bent over to form a semi-eircle. Coastal scrub was very prevalent in the South Island, especially round the fiords, where there were magnificent, composities, of which lie showed slides, including the mutton-bird scrub. West Coast growths included the nikau palms, the most southern of the palm family, aud stunted manuka almost prostrate and flowering when only a few inches high, because it grew on boggy ground with a sub-soil of hard sand. He showed slides of forest -growing across stony river bed in the Otira Gorge, and numerous pictures of ferns and forest, trees on the IVest Coast. He described ferns as a handicap to forest regeneration, because their spread was so rapid that the fronds darkened the forest floor, preventing the germination of the seeds of other species. One slide showed the prostrate tree-fern, which buries its stein so that the fronds appeared some distance from where I lie plant had life, and others illustrated the pigmy pine, bearing cones when- two or three inches high, and the bog pine, sometimes a tree though generally only a shrub. He said that the extremes between wetness and dryness in different parts of the South Island produced isolation of species, so that the vegetation in Canterbury differed from that, say, on the West Coast.

He showed by slides how the forest stopped abruptly on the Canterbury side of the Southern Alps, where -the moisture in the winds which came across the Tasman Sea became too little to support forest growth, and how the sheepfarmers burning sub-alpine plants to develop carrying capacity had really encouraged (the spread of the mountain daisies in Canterbury. The vegetable sheep of Canterbury, Otago ami Marlborough were also illustrated. The lecturer described these as of the daisy family and as being of a central stem "and root which grew out and matted till the centre became peat m which was stored moisture, so that the vegetable sheep really lived on part of its dead self. He showed a picture of a vegetable sheep h,e had found at nearly 9000 feet in .Marlborough. Mr. Thomson dealt exhaustively with beech and rain forests and the vegetation of the red' rock country in South Westland, and showed how umbrella fern grew immediately tracks were cut beside banks, with slides of the growth at Haast. His slide included many taken in the mountains of Canterbury, Most Coast, Southland, Otago and Marlborough, and Mrs. Knox Gilmer, who moved the vote of thanks, mentioned that some of them were being used by Lord Bledislop for showing samples of New Zealand native plants aud scenery in England.