9 June 2007

Cutty Grass Track

page 3

Off to the left a patch of Blechnum fraserii, the miniature tree fern, makes an attractive dark bronze green display.

Its somehow more pleasant, I reckon, where the track is obviously a product of pedestrian use. It can, of course, get claustrophobic and dark sometimes, but on a basically wide track, i welcome the softer edges as the bush reasserts itself.

Bloody jaffas

I'm not used to seeing kidney fern climbing a punga, but here it is.

Some of the blechnums can be difficult to distinguish, and to distinguish from some other genera

As we get further along, boggy patches begin to be more common.

Here's the characteristic trunk of a lancewood, and as I take my eyes upwards,

there's the top poking above the canopy.

This is another blechnum, Blechnum procerum, or small kiokio, not as common as some, but well-established in several areas along this track.

A young rimu invites stroking.

Watch for bikes!

Gorse is an unwelcome but almost inevitable presence wherever there is any light on the path.

I've not seen this before. I hazard a guess, by comparing the photo with that in Brownsey and Smith-Dodsworth, that it is Schizaea australis, or Comb Fern, but I'd want to confirm that to be sure.

Here is a Coprosma grandifolia, out of its accustomed place in the shadows and with leaves much smaller and more leathery.