28 April 2007

Piha Valley Track

page 2

And here's a young rata making its way up a tree trunk.

Here's one of mum's favourite lichens. She thought this one was especially beautiful.

This particular old man nikau has some especially beautiful patterning on its trunk.

Just remember, everything you've been looking at so far is less than half an hour from the carpark.

Here's some more off the same trunk:

Here's a young Olearia growing against a background of hangehange. This is a large genus and I don't know my way round in it yet. I'm a little surprised to see it as it is nearly always associated with a slightly drier, harsher, scrubbier environment than what we have here.

We're still making our way up the stream, sometimes right beside it and sometimes heading away a little.

Here's some more Tmesipteris. The spore bearing units are here quite green.

As the path rejoins the stream bank, palm leaf fern fronds reach out to meet us.

Across the other side of the stream they're also luxuriant

While there are a number of big trees scattered up the valley, the predominant canopy is still kanuka and some of them are very large. kanuka can live for upwards of a hundred years - and for those of us who think of them as "scrub", this should give us something else to consider.

This track is one I always think of as peaceful, and paradoxical as it may seem, one of the things that contributes to this is the sound of water constantly moving over a stony bed.

This smal-leaved Coprosma is probably C. rhamnoides, but I still find it difficult to tell the difference between many of them. Also, given their tendency to hybridise readily, I am often tempted to lump them all under C. promiscuus and be done with it. It is another of the almost universal company at the side of a tramping track.

Here and there the path is littered in white flowers

dropped fron canopy lacebark trees (houhere). Young shrubby lacebark are also common on the side of the track here, but not quite as universally as some of the others.

Here's a lacebark in flower I photographed on the Auckland City Walk a few weeks back: