Another installment on what Peter has been up to (in addition to observing birdlife).
Peter has been having a merry time botanising. He is especially pleased to have got onto so many of the small islands around Raoul when we were there. They’re not particularly rich in terms of numbers of plant species, but they haven’t been well looked at before.
He was alarmed when he got ashore on cyclone-ravaged North Meyer Island to find that an introduced weed is making the most of all the space and sunshine created by the fallen trees to start spreading rapidly. The weed is blue billygoat weed, which goes by the scientific name Ageratum houstonianum – it’s a common garden plant in New Zealand.
Blue billygoat weed Ageratum houstonianum © Peter de Lange
The reason it’s a problem is that it grows very fast, and is shading out slower growing seedlings of rare native plants such as Kermadec fireweed (Senecio kermadecensis). This is a healthy patch of the Kermadec fireweed, but little seedlings of blue billygoat weed growing amongst them can quickly overtake.
A patch of Senecio kermadecensis under threat by blue billygoat weed© Peter de Lange
One native plant that Peter was excited to discover was doing well, especially on South Meyer Island, is owee grass.
Owee grass, a native plant © Peter de Lange
This photo shows a button daisy, Cotula australis, and some Bryum moss – this is a very typical scene on seabird islands, where the soil is rich in guano (bird pooh!) from the seabirds, but is also frequently disturbed by the birds burrowing in the soil.
A button daisy, Cotula australis, and some Bryum moss © Peter de Lange
