21 August 2007

In the Steps of Jack Leigh

Chapter 17: Waitakere Nature Trail

(aka Arataki Nature Trail)

page 4

We're still going down

and here's another beauty

I stop to take a closer look at the bark. You can see where pieces have flaked off more recently. It is this litter, decaying, along with leaves and fallen branches, that tends to discourage other plants and trees from growing at all thickly beneath large kauri.

We carry on to the bottom of the hill and a small bridge

Maybe there is a case for equating taniwha and dragons, but for me the dragon is a creature of fire and air, and the taniwha undoubtedly a creature of water and earth. I found no trace of a taniwha here today, but there are many places in the bush where, if you are at all sensitive to subtle energies, you will pause before proceeding, to give and receive a blessing.

We continue and take the turnoff to the Kauri knoll. The track crosses the return path coming down, and a red arrow on a post points the way forward and a hound's tongue fern shines on the bank below it.

and along a little further is nice example of one of my favourites, the umbrella fern.

The scrub becomes a little lighter and a Corokia buddleioides is flourishing. I'm always curious to track down the origin of commemorative names, if I have time, so I had a dig around when I got home. Not the first time I've used the name, but the first time I've followed it up. The leaf is a handsome one.

Here's the grove of kauri.

It's pretty impressive.

I suppose we can grant a certain licence for this gross piece of anthropomorphism. After all, I keep putting words into Alice's mouth.

We head back down to the bottom of the hill.

and begin the steady climb back to the van.

C. buddleiodes was named in 1839 by Allan Cunningham for Adam Buddle (1662 - 1715), an English cleric and botanist, [probably more strictly for a perceived likeness between the leaves of C.buddleioides and Buddleia davidii.] Born at Deeping St. James, a small village near Peterborough, he was educated at Cambridge University and eventually ordained into the Church of England, obtaining a living at North Fambridge, near Maldon, Essex, in 1703. His life between graduation and ordination remains obscure; he lived at Hadleigh, Suffolk, and established a reputation as an authority on bryophytes. He compiled a new English Flora, completed in 1708, but it was never published; the original manuscript is preserved at the Natural History Museum, London. Appointed Reader at the Gray's Inn chapel, Buddle died there in 1715 and was buried at St. Andrew's, Holborn. Buddle was commemorated by Linnaeus, who named the genus Buddleia in his honour.

(info courtesy of Wikipedia)