Big storm damage - even the taupata

The severe southerly storm on 21 June hit Wellington's south coast pretty hard.  This video taken by a photographer from NIWA (the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research) gives some idea of what it was like.

Usually time passes and evidence of storms fades quite quickly.   But this time it isn't like that.  The glossy green leaves of taupata (Coprosma repens) are tough and resilient to salt and wind.  Taupata plants grow happily down on the seawall and along the coast, their rich green most attractive on bleak winter days.  But on a sunny day, weeks after the storm, there wasn't quite so much of the green...

I have never seen so much leaf damage on taupata before.

The shrivelled brown dead leaves contrast with the live leaves - still glossy and green, but also somewhat shrivelled and battered compared to their usual perky selves.

The parts of the bushes most exposed to the salt-laden gales look dead, the parts that got a bit of shelter held on to life.  You can see the direction of the wind in this pattern of death, not just at the coast but far inland.  Even the tough plants on the island show the changes...

Vegetation on Taputeranga - browning and areas of death, with a bit more green where there was shelter from the gales.  A peaceful sunny day when two kayakers can enjoy the water.  But to me the damage is a reminder.  Let's think about global climate change and the more dramatic weather events it is bringing and how our future is worth more than the laggardly action/inaction that our leaders are showing. 

Not from Iceland - a glowing poppy

In the late afternoon, a pretty soft orange Iceland poppy flower lights up a dark corner.

The crinkled tissue-like petals and the dramatic boss of stamens with golden anthers are emphasised by the side lighting, and the flower has a lovely delicate glow.  But Iceland poppies (Papaver nudicaule) are quite tough.  They come from subarctic regions of Europe, Asia, and North America...and true to the oddities of horticultural naming habits they do not from come from Iceland. 

I have been noticing the lasting damage caused by the severe storm many weeks ago - more about this to come - so the glimpse of this little jewel was a most welcome sight.

Lilies from A to Z

Actually only two different lilies, found in the Bolton Street Memorial Park growing beside graves from the colonial era.  A is for Arum italicum, I presume brought here by English settlers who were used to growing it in gardens as a woodland or shade plant - it provides winter interest in places where much is bare at that time.

Here in New Zealand it is categorised as a pest plant - in autumn it produces crops of brilliant red berries which are poisonous to people but palatable and tolerable to birds - like the also imported blackbird - which spread it around.

This dense clump made an attractive weed-suppressing carpet of the rich green arrowhead-shaped leaves with their distinctive creamy markings.

Z is for Zantedeschia aethiopica.  Confusingly it is called the arum lily - so this is a full alphabetical circle.

Also an introduction, it is often found in damp areas on pastureland, wasteland, where settlements once were, and in cemeteries - as this one was.

This close-up of a bud shows the unfurling shape of the spathe which appears almost a yellowy cream at first but opens to the familiar white flower (in botanical terms strictly not a flower, the white spathe curls around the central yellow spadix, which has a grouping of tiny true flowers.) 

Although strikingly elegant in flower and prized elsewhere as a garden plant, here it is also a pest, and for many people strongly associated with death.

Maybe it could be seen as a sinister beauty, but caught in the winter light I see only the gorgeous swirl, and fresh life here amidst memorials to people and times past.

Cloud pattern lichens

Clouds on an obelisk in the Bolton Street Memorial Park - or that's what it looked like to me.

Towards the top were reflections of the cloudy sky on the shiny stone surface.  Over the rest of the obelisk the lichen encrustation reminded me of Japanese cloud patterns - the shapes seen on fabrics, prints, and in the pruning of shrubs and trees.

Lichens are a wonderful example of the power of cooperation.  A fungus and an organism capable of photosynthesis, generally a green alga or a cyanobacterium, work together in a symbiotic relationship to form a distinct new organism.  They are able to grow in very inhospitable environments, coping with extremes of hot and cold - in the arctic, in deserts, on rocks, metals, human made structures, on plants and on soil. 

Despite this versatility and toughness, they tend to be vulnerable to environmental disturbance.  So some can be used as indicators of air pollution, ozone depletion, metal contamination and so on. 

Not quite like the canary in the mine, but sort of.

The air in Wellington is of good quality, and there are a lot of lichens growing on the old stone memorials from the colonial cemetery which is incorporated in the Park.

Do you see clouds?  Or maybe bushes?

The wonderful textures and tenacity of lichens.

Little white forget me nots - and earthquakes.

Wellington is a known earthquake hot spot - we are located in a "collision zone" between two of the Earth's great tectonic plates.  The Wellington Fault is a major fault line going right through the city, and there are many smaller fault lines too.  Earthquakes are a regular occurrence but I usually don't feel them.  Not so this weekend.  On Friday things got started with a 5.7 earthquake, and we were surprised by an even bigger one - 6.5 - just after 5 pm today, Sunday.  There have been lots and lots of significant aftershocks keeping us rattled, not letting us forget that the Earth is ever-changing and that the apparently solid ground is subject to strain and movement. 

Another forget me not that I have experienced in recent days I find much more agreeable - a little white flower quietly shining in a dry scree garden of alpine plants at Otari.

There are a number of little low growing white flowered native forget me nots (Myosotis) of similar appearance with their delicate flowers and bright green leaves.  These ones, nestled amidst other low growing alpine plants and in the shelter of grasses, Carex species, glow in the late afternoon light.

Such subtle beauty - a most acceptable contrast to the rumbles and shakes that currently distract me.  

There are reports of some damage to buildings, but no injuries to people.  We are lucky.  We will just have to get used to shudders and shakes for a while - no forgetting about earthquakes yet.

Textures and light at Otari

The storms have subsided and the sun is back in evidence (I know, I know, it didn't really go away - it just felt like that).  In the late afternoon the wintery sunlight was lighting up parts of Otari Native Botanic Garden, emphasising the wonderful plant shapes and textures of some of the plants growing there.

Looking across the lichen encrusted rocks of the alpine garden, the dappled light playing on the low growing alpine plants and the grasses and Astelia.  Behind them, and opened up by some tree loss from the storm, the backlit trees, shrubs and ferns bordering the fernery area. 

And some of the shapes and textures of New Zealand native plants are, frankly, a bit weird...

The spiny shapes and the jagged edged textures of Pseudopanax ferox - the so-called fierce pseudopanax.  These are the juvenile forms, but they don't get much more conventionally tree-like when mature.  Just a clump of these jaggedy leaves atop a skinny trunk.

Despite the ferocious name, they have a rather comical appearance I think - in any case, I had lots of fun trying to get an image that showed their wonderful weirdness.

Spidery orchids

Although the conservatory at the Wellington Botanic Garden is called the Begonia House it shelters a wonderful range of tender and tropical plants.  The attraction of their exotic colours and shapes, not to mention the shelter and warmth provided for them, is particularly strong in winter.  When I visited it this week, the busy web of spidery white flowers in front of more familiar orchid shapes caught my eye.

The label said Epidendrum ciliolaris, but I subsequently read that in 2004 it was renamed Coilostylis ciliaris.  It is also known as hairy-lip epidendrum (!) or fringed star orchid.  It is from Central America and South America to Brazil.  It grows in wet warm conditions, and flowers in winter and spring.

The white and whitish green flowers are fragrant at night - attracting moths which pollinate them.  But it was daytime and I could not detect a perfume.  They were in the warmest most moist area of the conservatory - I think of it as having a lush jungle-y feel. 

Tillandsias, the so-called air plants, grow without soil and perch on other plants but get no nourishment from them.  Their leaves are narrow and greyish in colour and in the conservatory they are displayed on a stylish metal frame, so the area has a very different feel - drier, more austere.  But lo, another spidery orchid was to be seen there...

Cirrhopetalum Elizabeth Ann 'Buckleberry'.

This is a hybrid which gained the highest award given by the American Orchid Society.It is apparently easily grown, and the photographs online, taken by enthusiastic orchid growers, show plants with many of these dangling groups of flowers.  But I have little other information about it part from the fact that it is also epiphytic and the name refers to the fringed petals - a naughty mix of Latin (cirrus - fringe) and Greek (petalon - petal).  The namer was not a purist.

These flowers are like the Coilostylis in that they both feature fringing and what I think of as a spidery appearance - but how different they are.  I started wondering about my use of the word spidery.  I was not suggesting they they were infested with spiders - one meaning in the dictionary.  And they don't look like a fine spiderweb, as in spidery handwriting.  But yes, the long narrow shapes could be a bit like a spider's legs.  Just not too literally. 

And now, back to winter - another severe southerly storm is predicted.

A firm footing - macrocarpas on Maupuia

A lot of big trees fell or were badly damaged during the recent severe storm and most of them were exotic conifers.  Curiously the two most common exotic conifers in New Zealand are the Monterey pine (Pinus radiata) and the Monterey cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa).  Both have a very restricted natural range (in the case of the macrocarpa, to Monterey on the coast of California - more specifically Cypress Point at Pebble Beach and Point Lobo near Carmel) where the native populations, relics of much larger forests, are under threat.  However, in New Zealand, they have both thrived and sometimes seem to be rampant. 

Macrocarpas are tolerant of harsh coastal conditions.  They were introduced here in the 1860's and were often planted in windbreaks on coastal farms where their spreading branches and quite dense foliage also gave good shelter for stock.  There are a lot of large macrocarpas in Wellington's town belt, and a number of them growing on Mt Victoria have been seen world wide - they featured in the first "Lord of the Rings" movie.  On the coastal road along the Maupuia peninsula, between Scorching Bay and Mahanga Bay, two macrocarpas put on a different show...

They are growing in a rocky outcrop - straight from the rock - who needs soil?  Closer up, the disruption of the rock by the roots is evident.  Thus they create the conditions for the tree to survive...

The cracks in the rock, fractured by the strong roots, will catch water.  Some of the minerals in the crumbling rock are presumably available to be taken up.  And there is plenty of sunshine.  On the other hand, there is salty spray and harsh wind - burning of foliage is evident on even the most resilient plants along the coast since the big storm, some absolutely devastated as if by fire.  Neverthless, these trees are of decent size, and do not seem to have been daunted by the storm.  Impressive.

Rose "Summer Passion" - in midwinter!

In the rose garden at the Wellington Botanic Garden a few of the roses have a few blooms left - despite it being midwinter and the bushes being bare of leaves.  A pretty pink rose caught my eye.  I haven't noticed this one before.  I smiled - it was a surprising sight and a sweetly incongrous name...

Rose "Summer Passion," bred by New Zealander Gina Martin.  It is said to flower well all season - and beyond, if this is anything to go by. 

Roses tend to be much tougher and more resilient than people give them credit for and out of season flowers can be a real delight, although they are often smaller and different in appearance because of the harsh conditions.  "Summer Passion" is described as a floribunda in style, the flowers large and pink with apricot centres and some scent.  The registered name is MARquizzical.  I look forward to the first flowering of spring and will be sure to look for more "Summer Passion"!

Calm evening colours

n Wellington the wind direction has a major impact on how the day will be.  Southerlies - cold, fresh.  Northerlies - warmer, fractious.  In between winds - calm, the light often clear and sparkling.  Yesterday was a settled day and the evening was calm and soft.  A pink sunset coloured the water and the scattered clouds, making pink and purple stripes.

Looking across Island Bay to Baring Head, the light fading.  The stripe at the horizon is the last light of the setting sun - the west is to the right of the photo.   Out to sea, it is even more peaceful and soft.

A magical hazy shimmer, as the evening closes in.