Rauparaha - Shore bindweed - Calystegia soldanella - Parangarahu Lakes area - East Harbour Regional Park - Wellington - New Zealand
Family: Convolvulaceae. A native NZ convolvulus. Indigenous. Kermadec, Three Kings, North, South, Stewart and Chatham Islands. Habitat: Coastal or inland along lake shorelines. Usually in sand or shell banks but also grows in fine gravel or pumice, talus slopes and on occasion in coastal turf or on cliff faces. Perennial herb with stout, white, deeply descending, fleshy roots and numerous prostrate branching stems forming dense patches. Stems glabrous. Petioles 80 mm or less, slender. Leaves (10-)50(-80) x (10-)50(-75) mm, reniform, fleshy, glossy, entire; sinus shallow and rounded; apex emarginate, obtuse or acute. Flowers solitary; peduncles ribbed, 100 mm long. Bracts ovate. cordate, obtuse 12-18 mm long. Sepals nearly = bracts, obtuse. Corolla 20-40 x 25-50 mm, campanulate, pink with white mid-petaline bands. Capsule 15-20 mm long, broad-ovoid, apiculate. Seeds dark brown, smooth.
A nationally important wetland and one of the finest in the Wellington region, these beautiful little coastal lakes are a stones throw from the borders of our capital city.
Cradled within the steep rolling hills of Pencarrow Head, the area abounds in natural and human history. Early Maori hunted and food gathered here and some of the ancient karaka trees, not natural in the Wellington region, were almost certainly planted by them as their fruit were an important food source. The lakes would have abounded in birdlife in pre-European times and eel, which are still there. Birdlife is still abundant here and with local volunteers now maintaining a network of traps for possum, stoat and rat (all introduced aniumals to New Zealand) the wildlife and plantlife is recovering. Black swan and mallard (introduced) and native little grebe and paradise duck can be found here and the raised lake banks that separate the lakes from the sea are important breeding grounds for banded dotteral and several rare species of cusion plants and native moths that breed and feed on them.
The hills above the lake were the sight of early New Zealand lighthosues, the two Pencarroew lights a popular destination for the many trampers and mountain bikers that visit here. Life was tough and the grave of a lighthouse keeper’s child sits below the upper lighthouse.
Today the hills are denuded from burning and pasturalisation but the small pockets of native forest in the valleys are recovering and spreading with protection. The introduced gorse, although a weed, helps with this. It provides shelter for the natives to grow through and is a nitrogen fixer so fertilised the soil.
Ancient karaka, tree fern and nikau palm, along with mahoe and manuka form the dominant trees in the recovering forest.
Wind is a constant here. Wellington is one of the world’s windiest cities and the Pencarrow Heads are infamous for sudden and violent windstorms. Yet the valleys can be tranquil even when gales are roaring over the tops. The photos in this series were all taken on a day when it was hard to stand upright and achieve pin-sharp photos, such was the force of the wind.
A nationally important wetland and one of the finest in the Wellington region, these beautiful little coastal lakes are a stones throw from the borders of our capital city.
Cradled within the steep rolling hills of Pencarrow Head, the area abounds in natural and human history. Early Maori hunted and food gathered here and some of the ancient karaka trees, not natural in the Wellington region, were almost certainly planted by them as their fruit were an important food source. The lakes would have abounded in birdlife in pre-European times and eel, which are still there. Birdlife is still abundant here and with local volunteers now maintaining a network of traps for possum, stoat and rat (all introduced aniumals to New Zealand) the wildlife and plantlife is recovering. Black swan and mallard (introduced) and native little grebe and paradise duck can be found here and the raised lake banks that separate the lakes from the sea are important breeding grounds for banded dotteral and several rare species of cusion plants and native moths that breed and feed on them.
The hills above the lake were the sight of early New Zealand lighthosues, the two Pencarroew lights a popular destination for the many trampers and mountain bikers that visit here. Life was tough and the grave of a lighthouse keeper’s child sits below the upper lighthouse.
Today the hills are denuded from burning and pasturalisation but the small pockets of native forest in the valleys are recovering and spreading with protection. The introduced gorse, although a weed, helps with this. It provides shelter for the natives to grow through and is a nitrogen fixer so fertilised the soil.
Ancient karaka, tree fern and nikau palm, along with mahoe and manuka form the dominant trees in the recovering forest.
Wind is a constant here. Wellington is one of the world’s windiest cities and the Pencarrow Heads are infamous for sudden and violent windstorms. Yet the valleys can be tranquil even when gales are roaring over the tops. The photos in this series were all taken on a day when it was hard to stand upright and achieve pin-sharp photos, such was the force of the wind.
Rauparaha - Shore bindweed - Calystegia soldanella - Parangarahu Lakes area - East Harbour Regional Park - Wellington - New Zealand
Family: Convolvulaceae. A native NZ convolvulus. Indigenous. Kermadec, Three Kings, North, South, Stewart and Chatham Islands. Habitat: Coastal or inland along lake shorelines. Usually in sand or shell banks but also grows in fine gravel or pumice, talus slopes and on occasion in coastal turf or on cliff faces. Perennial herb with stout, white, deeply descending, fleshy roots and numerous prostrate branching stems forming dense patches. Stems glabrous. Petioles 80 mm or less, slender. Leaves (10-)50(-80) x (10-)50(-75) mm, reniform, fleshy, glossy, entire; sinus shallow and rounded; apex emarginate, obtuse or acute. Flowers solitary; peduncles ribbed, 100 mm long. Bracts ovate. cordate, obtuse 12-18 mm long. Sepals nearly = bracts, obtuse. Corolla 20-40 x 25-50 mm, campanulate, pink with white mid-petaline bands. Capsule 15-20 mm long, broad-ovoid, apiculate. Seeds dark brown, smooth.
A nationally important wetland and one of the finest in the Wellington region, these beautiful little coastal lakes are a stones throw from the borders of our capital city.
Cradled within the steep rolling hills of Pencarrow Head, the area abounds in natural and human history. Early Maori hunted and food gathered here and some of the ancient karaka trees, not natural in the Wellington region, were almost certainly planted by them as their fruit were an important food source. The lakes would have abounded in birdlife in pre-European times and eel, which are still there. Birdlife is still abundant here and with local volunteers now maintaining a network of traps for possum, stoat and rat (all introduced aniumals to New Zealand) the wildlife and plantlife is recovering. Black swan and mallard (introduced) and native little grebe and paradise duck can be found here and the raised lake banks that separate the lakes from the sea are important breeding grounds for banded dotteral and several rare species of cusion plants and native moths that breed and feed on them.
The hills above the lake were the sight of early New Zealand lighthosues, the two Pencarroew lights a popular destination for the many trampers and mountain bikers that visit here. Life was tough and the grave of a lighthouse keeper’s child sits below the upper lighthouse.
Today the hills are denuded from burning and pasturalisation but the small pockets of native forest in the valleys are recovering and spreading with protection. The introduced gorse, although a weed, helps with this. It provides shelter for the natives to grow through and is a nitrogen fixer so fertilised the soil.
Ancient karaka, tree fern and nikau palm, along with mahoe and manuka form the dominant trees in the recovering forest.
Wind is a constant here. Wellington is one of the world’s windiest cities and the Pencarrow Heads are infamous for sudden and violent windstorms. Yet the valleys can be tranquil even when gales are roaring over the tops. The photos in this series were all taken on a day when it was hard to stand upright and achieve pin-sharp photos, such was the force of the wind.
A nationally important wetland and one of the finest in the Wellington region, these beautiful little coastal lakes are a stones throw from the borders of our capital city.
Cradled within the steep rolling hills of Pencarrow Head, the area abounds in natural and human history. Early Maori hunted and food gathered here and some of the ancient karaka trees, not natural in the Wellington region, were almost certainly planted by them as their fruit were an important food source. The lakes would have abounded in birdlife in pre-European times and eel, which are still there. Birdlife is still abundant here and with local volunteers now maintaining a network of traps for possum, stoat and rat (all introduced aniumals to New Zealand) the wildlife and plantlife is recovering. Black swan and mallard (introduced) and native little grebe and paradise duck can be found here and the raised lake banks that separate the lakes from the sea are important breeding grounds for banded dotteral and several rare species of cusion plants and native moths that breed and feed on them.
The hills above the lake were the sight of early New Zealand lighthosues, the two Pencarroew lights a popular destination for the many trampers and mountain bikers that visit here. Life was tough and the grave of a lighthouse keeper’s child sits below the upper lighthouse.
Today the hills are denuded from burning and pasturalisation but the small pockets of native forest in the valleys are recovering and spreading with protection. The introduced gorse, although a weed, helps with this. It provides shelter for the natives to grow through and is a nitrogen fixer so fertilised the soil.
Ancient karaka, tree fern and nikau palm, along with mahoe and manuka form the dominant trees in the recovering forest.
Wind is a constant here. Wellington is one of the world’s windiest cities and the Pencarrow Heads are infamous for sudden and violent windstorms. Yet the valleys can be tranquil even when gales are roaring over the tops. The photos in this series were all taken on a day when it was hard to stand upright and achieve pin-sharp photos, such was the force of the wind.