NATURALISTS’ FIELD CLUB

Evening Star, Issue 22772, 6 October 1937, Page 8

NATURALISTS’ FIELD CLUB

THE SLOPES OF FLAGSTAFF On Saturday members of the Field Club met in the Kaikorai Valley and made their way over to the slopes of Flagstaff by a rather overgrown track behind Ashburn Hall. Everywhere on the hills the gorse was in brilliant bloom, and the views on the Taieri side, of Saddle Hill, Maungatua, and the.snow-capped Rock and Pmar Range, and on the town side were beautiful, with a soft blue haze. The season is still early for nearly all the flowering plants. . A single leaf of an onion-leaved orchid was all that could be seen of orchids. The tussock in the neighbourhood of Ben Rudd’s old home was well flattened, probably with recent snow, and the. prostrate tree fern (Alsophila colensoi), withered and brown in parts, showed also fresh, new spreading ironds. Oh the swampy area# were plants of buttercup, nertera, and gunnera (both in fruit), and liverwort, while in the hollows under tussocks and boulders young ferns and violets were growing healthily. In a small patch of bush where native cedars rise up tall among, astelia and flax, nothopanax and suttonia the fern enthusiasts were delighted to find a goodly patch of the rare filmy fern (Hymenophyllum malingii) on a cedar trunk. This fern is only rarely found on any other wood. Not far from it, on the roots of a cedar tree, were specimens of two other filmy ferns (Hymenophyllum tunbridgense and H. peltatum), both rare ferns in the Dunedin district. A slight detour was made to the right, on the .tetura walk. Larks and grey warblers, tomtits and fantails were the chief birds noticed.

ALPINE VEGETATION. At the indoor meeting Mr D. Leigh gave a comprehensive account of the alpine vegetation of the New Zealand mountains, illustrating his remarks with coloured lantern slides of many beautiful and striking plants growing in their natural environment. Starting with the mountains nearest to Dunedin,, Mr Leigh first described the remnant of alpine vegetation on the top of Maungatua, Here above the sub-alpine scrub of Dracophyllum and Dacrydium. bidwillii are several cushion celmisia* and other cushion plants, gentians, tufted celmisias, and the blue-flowered herpolirion. A more varied collection is found on the Rick and Pillar Range. The flat top of this range is covered with a carpet of celmisia visoos* stretching for miles, and many other daisies are found on the slopes. But it is in Western Otago that the mountain plants are at their best, and probably of all the Otago mountains the natural rock gardens of the Eouteburn Mountains have the greatest profusion and variety of flowering plants. The cel* misias, yellow apd white-flowered sene* cios, ourisias, ranunculi, a yellowflowered forget-me-not, and cushion plants are but a few of the vast array to be found on these slopes. _ On the slopes of Mount Tutoko there is luxuriant sub-alpine vegetation, bat the alpine vegetation is disappointing, the steep rock slopes being ice-covered throughout the year and not favourable for the growth of plants. At the conclusion of his instructive address a vote of thanks to Mr Leigh was carried on the motion ofiMiss E, Campbell.