The Green Room
Hey there, I'm kickin off this topic because I know there will be lots of people like me who can't work out if some bugs, plants, whatever are native or not.
I'm hoping by people posting photos can have their deeply troubling questions answered by those who know :)
Is it Native?? This grows here and there all over my land amoung kanuka and takekaha 40 year old regenerating forest in the Bay of Islands area.
bits_071.jpg (141.1 KB, 0 downloads) 1 year old bits_068.jpg (111.9 KB, 0 downloads) 1 year old Is it Native?? This grows here and there all over my land amoung kanuka and takekaha 40 year old regenerating forest in the Bay of Islands area.
Hi Kukupa.
I'm very much a South island botanist but I wonder if you are showing us Ixerba brexioides or Tawari (haven't got my plant books here so can't check). If that is what it is it is a native member of the Protea family like Rewarewa...but I've only seen it once in the Mamaku Ranges 30 years ago so my memory might be a bit hazy.
I'm sure someone closer to Northland can help.
Cheers
Sorry. I'm still pretty sure that it is the NZ protea, Persoonia toru but I gave the wrong Latin name above. We have got only 2 native Proteas, Toru (East Cape to North Cape in shrubland) and Rewarewa (Marlborough Sounds to North Cape). Australia and South Africa are the strongholds of the protea family.
Poole and Adams describe the Toru's "fruit is a drupe" and that is what you photo shows so well.
According to the president of the Auckland Botanical Society it is toru (Peersonia toru) and yes, it is a native.
Well done Tawaki, you win the chocolate fish....
Thanks heaps! This kukupa needs to know the difference between natives and weeds.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaa_189.jpg (94.4 KB, 0 downloads) 1 year old Hehehe...Food's food I guess!! Any tui around here'll tell us that!
Even had a kukupa fly in to my garden (in the heart of town - it must've been lost!) and it returned for several days/weeks to gorge on the those small Chiliean gauvas that grow like weeds round about..
Speaking of food for birds, hear that the birds (especially kiwis?) up north are being hit by this drought. Stories of kiwi coming out of their bush homes during the day right out into the open to find food and water. Have been in touch about a donation to the Native Bird Recovery Centre up in Whangarei - they're being pretty inundated with birds needing to be rescued at the moment, and the workers there are volunteers. Several kiwi chicks apparently, from there they're being sent out to pest-free Limestone Island to gain size before return to their forests. Our kids part of F&B have sponsored one's keep at the centre because he was found at Trounson, (his nickname is Puddles because he was found face-down next to a puddle on a walking track at Trounson) and apparently that's too far from Limestone Island for DoC to OK his being put there with the others.
The Centre has invited anyone from F&B to drop in (they're open only during the week - so check the times) and see them and the birds there (lots of different species).
And kereru and blackbirds spread the fruits all round the native bush!.
We inherited rowan trees here with their lovely red autumn fruits. Then checking through a DOC weed species register about 5 years ago, I realised that these were being sown by blackbirds all through the mountain beech forest. We have now chopped out all the rowan but it is amazing how the rowan seedlings still keep appearing.
Blackberry is perhaps the worst invasive weed spread by birds down here in the south and I had a Hawaiian ecologist here who described blackberry as the worst weed in Hawaii.
In my own defense, I've since cut the gauva down (but you're right in that seedlings keep coming up all over the show; I wondered where they were coming from and this'd explain it...)
I spotted this weed in the bush the other day, Phoenix palm I think.
stuff_09_027.jpg (132.1 KB, 0 downloads) 1 year old So many plant pests. The Auckland Regional Council (I think the manager of Biosecurity is still Jack Craw, who was with Northland Regional Council - and did lots of great stuff up there about local weed species) has a good ID part on their website of plant pests http://www.arc.govt.nz/albany/index.cfm?F1E93A5A-14C2-3D2D-B9B9-4D973F3A53AD
I'm sure this one is native, but don't know what it is? Grows about knee hight, dry clay, northland.
bits_081.jpg (107.2 KB, 0 downloads) 1 year old bits_073.jpg (128.1 KB, 0 downloads) 1 year old It is a native Pomaderris but I'm sure that someone up there will know the species. They are really a northern plant but one species is very rare on the Canterbury Plains. The genus is very common in Australia. It is often called "soap plant" because when you rub it in water you get a lather.
Awesome! Thanks Tawaki. I'll give it a go. It is growing with heaps of Kumarahoe, I've heard it does the same.
This link http://www.nzpcn.org.nz/flora_search.asp?scfSubmit=1 might give you a species name..?
Wow thats a cool sites, thanks Anne. I'm 95% sure it's Pomaderris phylicifolia, Nationally Endangered.
This is a Quail that is running all over my place, wondering if anyone knows what breed it is? It lives in groups of 10-20, does not fly far, definately not california quail.
what_ever_033.jpg (61.9 KB, 0 downloads) 1 year old what_ever_029.jpg (62.1 KB, 0 downloads) 1 year old I'd love to tell you that you had found the extinct NZ Quail but I think it is actually the Brown Quail introduced to NZ from Australia and widespread around Northland swamps and salt marshes.
I asked a friend who knows his birds, and here's his reply:
I do think this is an Australian Brown Quail illustrated, not a breed (that’s a manmade thing! Yuck!) but a true species like virtually all wild birds here. They are our smallest game bird species (hard to imagine anyone seriously wanting to hunt these lovely little birds to eat them) and are the closest (not the same family though!) wild Quail we have to our own extinct NZ Quail which was unfortunately hunted & predated to extinction!
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