Ferndown Track

page 3

The ferns here are quite different from those we encountered earlier. And so much for that old classic Flanders and Swan song about the right hand thread honey suckle and left hand thread bindweed. (or was it vv?)

Here's a rata that has changed its mind in mid-spiral so to speak.

I'm pretty sure this is a young Coprosma arborea. Where C. spathulata has a slight bluish tinge, this has a slight goldy-red quality

The bush is getting lusher - it's quite lovely walking, if a trifle slippery still.

Only my poles allow me to walk safely and still pay attention to the vegetation.

In my report the other day on the Edwin Mitchelson track I mentioned a hangehange with especially fat and rounded leaves. Today we have one with exceptionally long and pointed leaves.

Does anyone have any ideas about the apparently wide variation in leaf shape - it's not all habitat as often these variations are growing right beside each other and beside "normal" hangehange.

Quite a handsome fern.

One of the things I like about this track is its spacious quality, something I realise consciously later in the day when I walk the Rangemore Track, which is much more in your face and at your elbow.

A young rimu stands gracefully at the edge of the track

We reach a kind of divide. We have been steadily, if gently, climbing for some time and quite suddenly we begin our long and equally gentle descent.

As we head down this side the vegetation becomes quite a lot more dense.

Suddenly, in the leaf litter by the edge of the path are a small group of mushrooms. Mushroom season is usually autumn, so I am surprised to see these here.

Over a few metres and a climbing fern, mangemange, nearly smothers its host trunk.

As we descend, the nature of the bush changes, and for a while we are in shorter, more open, scrubby bush under a kanuka canopy.