Category Archives: Field trips

New Caledonian ferns with close relatives in New Zealand

31 October 2012 – 8.28am

A lot of New Caledonian species belong to fern genera that also occur in New Zealand. Some look very similar to New Zealand species, whereas others are quite different!  Here’s a few from my recent trip.

Cyathea albifrons. Like New Zealand’s silver fern (Cyathea dealbata), the fronds are white underneath. But the two species are not closely related. Cyathea albifrons was the dominant tree fern in the forested serpentine areas that we visited. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Cyathea intermedia. I’ve seen competing claims about whether New Zealand’s Cyathea medullaris or New Caledonia’s Cyathea intermedia was the world’s tallest tree fern. Having now seen them both, my vote is with Cyathea intermedia; easily. Majestically massive. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Dicksonia thyrsopteroides. Superficially similar to New Zealand’s Dicksonia squarrosa (wheki), but it is less hairy and the different-looking fertile parts of the frond are distinctive (see below). Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Dicksonia thyrsopteroides. The fertile parts of the frond, right and centre, look very different to the sterile parts, to the far left. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Trichomanes laetum. What a cute little fuzz ball! According to my books, laetum is Latin for attractive or joyful. The closest relative in New Zealand is Trichomanes elongatum. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Hymenophyllum rolandi-principis. There are lots of Hymenophyllum species in New Zealand, but I think none so elegant as this. Grows as an epiphyte in high altitude forest. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Adiantum novae-caledoniae. I suspect our DNA analyses will confirm this as being very closely related to Adiantum cunninghamii, A. fulvum, and A. viridescens of New Zealand, and Adiantum silvaticum of Australia. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Asplenium oligolepidum. An uncommon epiphyte. Preliminary DNA analyses have suggested that its relationship to New Zealand’s Asplenium oblongifolium and Asplenium obtusatum is not as close as one might suspect from its looks. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Blechnum obtusatum. Common around streams. A very handsome fern that could make a wonderful garden plant. Recalls somewhat Blechnum fluviatile or Blechnum durum, but unpublished DNA analyses indicate the closest New Zealand relatives are probably those currently classified as Doodia. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Blechnum corbassonii. A fairly common forest fern. Part of a group of New Caledonian Blechnum ferns that I found difficult to work with, but which are apparently related to Blechnum novae-zelandiae. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Blechnum diversifolium. Unusual for a Blechnum in that the frond is twice-divided. Blechnum fraseri in New Zealand does the same, and perhaps they’re related. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Sticherus montaguei. Reasonably common at the margins of upland forests. Up close it looks like Sticherus flabellatus, but it is much, much bigger. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

By Leon Perrie | Also posted in Biodiversity, Ferns, Pacific, Plants | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)

New Caledonian ferns shared with New Zealand

29 October 2012 – 3.20pm

About 35 species of fern are found in both New Caledonia and New Zealand. That’s about 13% and 18% of the total species in each area.  Almost all of these are widespread species that are also found elsewhere in the Pacific (and beyond).

Here’s a few of them that I saw during my recent field work in New Caledonia:

Dicranopteris linearis is one of the world’s most widespread ferns. In New Zealand it is only found at geothermal sites in the central North Island, but it is widespread through the Pacific. In New Caledonia it is abundant where the vegetation is recovering from disturbance, such as in the Melaleuca savannah. From the morphological diversity present in New Caledonia, I suspect more than one species is present. Dicranopteris is distinguished from the related Gleichenia and Sticherus by the naked stems below the frond-forks. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Lycopodiella cernua is a lycophyte rather than a fern. It is often found with Dicranopteris linearis, at sites where the vegetation has been disturbed.  It gets much bigger in New Caledonia than in New Zealand. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Schizaea dichotoma, fan fern. This is just a young, unfurling frond. The red colour doesn’t last. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Tmesipteris sigmatifolia, fork fern. Grows on tree fern trunks. Seemed common in New Caledonia. Largely restricted to kauri forest in New Zealand, although other species are widespread. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Histiopteris incisa, water fern. A relative of bracken (Pteridium esculentum), but generally found at wetter sites. New Caledonian plants have a ‘tougher’ look compared to those in New Zealand. Photo Leon Perrie. (c) Te Papa.

Gleichenia dicarpa, tangle fern. Up close, New Caledonian plants look very different to those from New Zealand. We were already working on a taxonomic revision of this species. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

By Leon Perrie | Also posted in Biodiversity, Ferns, Pacific, Plants | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

New Caledonian plants

26 October 2012 – 2.37pm

Below are photos of some of the botanical/landscape highlights from the recent expedition to New Caledonia that I participated in. But first, a bit of background:

New Zealand and New Caledonia both sit on the (largely) submerged continent Zealandia, which separated from Australia and the rest of Gondwana some 60-80 million years ago.

Wikipedia’s page on Zealandia.

Both New Caledonia and New Zealand are regarded as biodiversity hotspots. However, New Caledonia, despite a land area less than 10% of New Zealand’s, has far more species of indigenous vascular plants (very approximately 3300 cf. c. 2500). This probably reflects New Caledonia’s tropical setting; tropical areas generally have more species than temperate areas.

Endemism, where organisms are restricted to a particular area, is high for both New Caledonia and New Zealand, at about 75-80% amongst indigenous seed plants.

A large portion of New Zealand’s indigenous plants are found in its alpine zone. New Caledonia has no alpine zone, but it does have very different rock types which support very different plant communities.

Amborella trichopoda is a rather unprepossessing shrub to look at. In fact, with its leaves often smothered by bryophytes, it’s rather scungy. However, it fascinates botanists because it is the most distantly related of all living flowering plants, at least according to some evolutionary analyses. It is only found in New Caledonia. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Wikepedia’s page on Amborella trichopoda.

By contrast, Parasititaxus usta is freakily striking, indeed alien-like. Also only found in New Caledonia, it is the world’s only parasitic conifer, and has no need for green chlorophyll. It belongs to the podocarp family, along with the likes of New Zealand’s rimu and totara. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Wikepedia’s page on Parasititaxus usta.

New Caledonia is renowned for its abundance of araucarians: Araucaria and Agathis. They seem to be nearly everywhere. In this picture is, I believe, Araucaria montana, near the summit of Mont Do and surrounded by Nothofagus/beech. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

I’ve seen a lot of New Zealand’s magnificent kauri, Agathis australis, so it was fascinating to see some of the diversity of Agathis in New Caledonia. Many New Caledonian Agathis also appear to be known as kauri (or kaori). The Agathis species on Mount Panie, known as Dayu Biik (not pictured), is subject to dieback similar to that being experienced by the New Zealand kauri. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

The New Zealand kauri dieback website.

Pictures of New Caledonia Agathis from the Endemia website.

Even some of the other plants look like araucarians. These Araucariaceae mimics are: at left, the cedar Neocallitropsis pancheri, in the Cupressaceae, and; at right, a species of Dacrydium, with male cones, in the Podocarpaceae, and a reasonably close relative of New Zealand’s rimu! Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

The Nothofagus, or southern beeches, in New Caledonia belong to a tropical sub-group, and do not look anything like the species in New Zealand. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Mountainous (sub-?) tropical rainforest abounds in some parts. This is Aoupinie. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Short, shrubby vegetation, called maquis, dominates large areas, especially in the south on the serpentine soils. This is Dzumac. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Dracophyllum verticillatum in flower in the maquis vegetation beside the road up Mont Do. Dracophyllum species only occur in New Caledonia, Australia, and New Zealand. Thanks to Phil Garnock-Jones for the species identification. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Juan embracing the Lilliputian conifer ‘trees’ of the maquis vegetation. These are Neocallitropsis pancheri, at Montagne Des Sources. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

As I knelt to collect a fern, I was stunned to find myself surrounded by pitcher plants, Nepenthes vieillardii. The ‘pitchers’ are traps for catching insects. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

The large areas covered by Melaleuca trees are very reminiscent of Australia. But they are also testament to one of the major threats to New Caledonia’s vegetation – fire. The fern Dicranopteris linearis flourishes amongst the Melaleuca regeneration. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

New Caledonia has a higher GDP per capita than New Zealand, principally due to nickel and copper mining. Mining operations are widely evident. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Another threat to New Caledonia’s vegetation is browsing by introduced deer and pigs. Conservation International are trialling using the amount of browse on the fern Orthiopteris firma to monitor the effectiveness of animal control projects. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

By Leon Perrie | Also posted in Biodiversity, Pacific, Plants | Tagged , , , , | Comments (1)

New Caledonia fern collecting

25 October 2012 – 2.46pm

I’m just back from three weeks collecting ferns in New Caledonia.

For a place so close to New Zealand (shorter flight time than to Australia), I knew very little about New Caledonia. I expect that is true for many New Zealanders, and it presumably reflects our very different cultures, not least being the language difference (French predominates in New Caledonia, and English* in New Zealand).

New Caledonia is not an independent country but a special collectivity of France. Nouméa, its largest city, is like a piece of France transplanted to the tropical Pacific. The original Melanesian character is perhaps most strongly retained in the (north-)east.

Wikipedia page on New Caledonia.

Wikipedia page on the indigenous Kanak people.

Some of Te Papa’s existing collections from New Caledonia.

We stayed in villages during some of our trip. Here at Bas Coulna, before we left to climb Mount Panié, we had a traditional-type hut. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Funded principally by a grant from the USA’s National Science Foundation, our collecting expedition was led by Matt von Konrat (Field Museum), Blanka Shaw (Duke University), and Louis Thouvenot, who was our guide and translator (none of the others in the expedition had been to New Caledonia before or spoke French, although Juan’s Spanish was useful on many occasions). The main goal was to collect Frullania liverworts, but we variously collected mosses, liverworts, and lichens – these are all small plants that are often neglected. I was invited along to collect ferns.

Interview with Radio Australia’s Pacific Beat programme about the expedition.

Blog post on similar expedition to Fiji in 2011.

The black stems, each only about 1 mm wide, of a Frullania liverwort creeping over a white lichen on the trunk of a mangrove tree. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

New Caledonia is home to about 270 ferns and lycophytes. That’s more than New Zealand, despite a land area less than 10%. About 35% of New Caledonia’s ferns and lycophytes are endemic (i.e., only found there), which is very high for a tropical Pacific island. However, the last comprehensive account is from 1969, and it is clear that much revision is needed. A reflection of this is that there are (at least) two species of new tree fern needing scientific description. During the three week expedition, I made 232 collections, of at least 160 different species. These include new species, new records for New Caledonia, and rediscoveries (species not recorded for a long time).

Te Papa’s updated checklist of Fiji’s ferns, which I hope to replicate for New Caledonia.

The Endemia website includes photos of many of New Caledonia’s ferns, and is an excellent photographic resource about New Caledonia’s biodiversity

In coming days I’ll post about some of the plants I saw, particularly, of course, the ferns.

Trip leader Matt von Konrat collecting Frullania liverworts up a mangrove. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Collecting near Tinou. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

All available space in our lodgings was often given over to drying specimens. Louis’s bed is somewhere under these paper packets. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

On our way to Mount Panié. We were fortunate to have horses carry our packs for the first part of the trek. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Maurice, one of our guides for Mount Panié, using a wreath of the fern Paesia rugosula to complement the shade of his cap. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Albeit clearly exhausted, here’s proof that I did make it to the summit of Mount Panié, New Caledonia’s highest point at 1629 m above sea level. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

The expedition couldn’t have been the success it was without the assistance of many, especially Louis Thouvenot, as well as the Nouméa herbarium, the government land managers, the Kanak land owners and guides, and our contacts at Dayu Biik, Conservation International, and Société Calédonienne d’Ornithologie.

* I can note that the so-called ‘English’ speech of the two (monolingual) New Zealanders was constantly belittled by the other members (all multilingual) of the expedition, none of whom spoke English as a first language. Matt and I weren’t sure what to make of this.

By Leon Perrie | Also posted in Biodiversity, Bryophytes, Ferns, Pacific, Plants | Tagged , , , , | Comments (10)

Going International, Part II – What caught my eye at two recent botany meetings

24 September 2012 – 6.20pm

Here are just a few of the many highlights from the two international botany conferences I recently attended: Botany 2012 (Columbus, OH, USA) and  Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology 2012 (German Botanical Society 21st International Symposium, Mainz, Germany).

  • Plant identification goes visual, interactive and mobile

Plant identification keys are useful when you want to identify an unknown plant specimen to a species. Traditionally, keys have been found in books or other printed media, and have used written, verbal descriptions as choices that user must make (see an example here for Plantago from the 1961 New Zealand Flora). When using a conventional key, a user must proceed down the key and finally “key out” or identify the plant specimen of interest.

But keys are becoming increasingly interactive, making use of specialised computer software and including photos and drawings to aid identification (see for example Key to the Flowering Plant Genera of New Zealand). Keys are also becoming exteremely mobile, with the development of smart phone applications for plant identification (such as Leafsnap for the USA). I saw one talk by Alexander Krings about the development of these great apps for the Flora of North Carolina. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to have such mobile plant identification apps for the New Zealand flora?

I also attended a hands-on workshop about so-called “visual keys“, which rely exclusively on photos and other visual aids. At the workshop, which was run by Bruce Kirchoff from the University of North Carolina Greensboro, we were divided into groups whose task was to create our own visual key for oak tree leaves using only a set of images. Then other workshop participants tested our group’s visual key by keying out leaves from another set of images. The workshop was fun and challenging, would be a great exercise for high school or university biology courses, and got me thinking about different ways I might create plant ID keys, especially for the forget-me-nots I am currently working on.

  • DNA Sequencing: The Next Generation

Use of so-called “Next Generation Sequencing” in (NGS) evolutionary biology research was a dominant theme at both conferences I attended. (And even though this might sound more like something from a certain television programme from the 1980s and 90s, I can assure you I was attending botany conferences, not sci-fi conventions!) The relatively new technology of NGS allows sequencing of large portions of the genome quickly, giving us orders of magnitude more DNA data from the organisms we study and allowing researchers to understand them better and answer more interesting questions about them.

In fact I have come to Oldenburg, Germany to learn and perform NGS methods to study the evolution of certain polyploid New Zealand and European Veroncica species (more on that later). By the way, on the conference field trip to “Mainzer Sand”, I saw my first European Veronica species in its native habitat, check it out (with thanks to Aaron Liston for the photos):

Heidi Meudt on the botanical field trip to the "Mainzer Sand", at the “Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology" meeting, the 21st International Symposium of the German Botanical Society (DBG) , Sept. 2012. I am kneeling just behind the European plant species Veronica spicata. Photo by Aaron Liston.

Heidi Meudt on the botanical field trip to the “Mainzer Sand”, at the “Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology” meeting, the 21st International Symposium of the German Botanical Society (DBG) , Sept. 2012. I am kneeling just behind the European plant species Veronica spicata. Photo by Aaron Liston.

Veronica spicata flowers from the "Mainzer Sand", Mainz, Germany. Sept. 2012. Photo by Aaron Liston.

Veronica spicata flowers from the “Mainzer Sand”, Mainz, Germany. Sept. 2012. Photo by Aaron Liston.

Veronica spicata fruits from the "Mainzer Sand", Mainz, Germany. Sept. 2012. Photo by Aaron Liston.

Veronica spicata fruits from the “Mainzer Sand”, Mainz, Germany. Sept. 2012. Photo by Aaron Liston.

By Heidi Meudt | Also posted in Biodiversity, Plants, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (1)

Westland Petrels circumnavigate South Island

21 September 2012 – 10.37am

Te Papa scientists Dr Susan Waugh and Dr Lara Shepherd recently completed a study of foraging movements of Westland Petrels. The birds were studied in 2 years and during 3 parts of the breeding season (pre-breeding, incubation and chick-rearing). This gave great insights into which ocean areas the birds are using, and where they concentrate their efforts.

GPS logger deployment on Westland Petrel

BirdLife’s Mark Miller and Susan Waugh from Te Papa deploy a GPS logger on Westland Petrel Procellaria westlandica to track its movements at sea. Photo: Clara Peron.

Birds fed very close inshore along the entire west coast of the South Island of New Zealand, and also spent considerable time in Cook Strait, off Wellington’s south coast, and in the Kaikoura area. Birds were mainly feeding over the continental shelf areas, in water depths of less than 200m. Looking at some of the tracks, you could imagine you’d see the birds from the coast, on the right day. They were flying very close to shore, which is fairly rare for petrels.

There were distinctive behaviours of visiting areas nearby the nesting colony near Punakaiki in Westland, where birds travelled slowly in meandering flight and spend 2 – 4 days at sea. They visited BruceBay, the Karamea Bight, and areas off central Westland in the Tasman Sea during these trips. This differed from birds travelling to more distant locations such as Kaikoura or Cook Strait where the birds appeared to travel more directly, and birds that went further away spent longer at sea.

One bird rather dramatically flew around the entire south island, before cruising home to visit its nest-mate.

Westland Petrel foraging trip, June 2012

Westland Petrel which circumnativaged the South Island of New Zealand during a foraging trip in the incubation period in June 2012 Graphic: D. Filppi, Sextant Technology Ltd.

We developed a new way of examining the movements of birds, in collaboration with Dr Dominique Filippi of Sextant Technology. We plotted the bird locations for our group of tracked birds, and simultaneously showed the day or night conditions. This showed some spectacular results with birds moving quite synchronously at times, and clearly as active at night as during the day. The preliminary results for this dataset are available to see as a short movie.

During early September 2012, colleagues from the CNRS France, Clara Peron, and from BirdLife International in UK, Mark Miller assisted with the field work.

Westland Petrel Procellaria westlandica

Westland petrel on the breeding colony checks out a fern. Photo: Lara Shepherd.

There was rather a lot of rain, and over one weekend alone over 120 mm of rain fell! We were glad of the extra help, as we were catching birds visiting their chicks between dusk and dawn, and a fair amount of staying up in the small hours was done.

Westland Petrel field team having a moment enjoying the rain

Field team taking a break from the mud on our way home. From left to right: Lara Shepherd (Te Papa), Clara Peron (CNRS), Susan Waugh (Te Papa), Mark Miller (BirdLife International) Photo: Mark Miller.

This study was conducted by Te Papa in collaboration with Dr John Arnould of Deakin University and Dominique Filippi of Sextant Technology Ltd. We thank Department of Conservation for their assistance with aspects of the field programme and Ngati Waewae for consent to carry out the programme.

By Susan Waugh | Also posted in Birds | Tagged , | Comments (1)

Rare forget-me-nots discovered in the mountains of the South Island

22 August 2012 – 4.16pm

Today, two rare species of forget-me-nots have been added to the Flora of New Zealand. These new species were discovered during an expedition I led to Kahurangi National Park, one of the hotspot for forget-me-nots diversity in New Zealand.

These new species, Myosotis chaffeyorum (Chaffey’s Forget-me-not) and Myosotis mooreana (Moore’s forget-me-not) are described and illustrated in an article published today in the open access journal PhytoKeys.

These new forget-me-nots are extremely uncommon. Moore’s forget-me-not is currently known from a single spot where only six plants were found. Chaffey’s forget-me-not, on the other hand, is habitat-specific and it is only found at the entrance of small caves at the base of limestone bluffs.

Moore’s forget-me-not and a close up to its flowers. Photo CA Lehnebach, @ Te Papa

Habitat and plant of Chaffey’s forget-me-not. Photo by CA Lehnebach, @ Te Papa

Because of the low number of plants and populations currently known for these species they have been rated as “Nationally Critical”. This is not unusual for New Zealand forget-me-nots and many of them are currently threatened.

By Carlos A. Lehnebach | Also posted in Biodiversity, forget-me-nots, Plants | Comments (0)

Fieldwork in the Subantarctic Islands, a hundred years ago

6 July 2012 – 1.45pm

I’ve been enjoying our scientist’s fieldwork posts.  We have scientist’s photographs from several historic field trips in the photography collection.  My favourites are in this photo album from the 1907 Expedition to the Subantarctic Islands.  The Expedition was initiated by the Canterbury Philosophical Institute with support from the Government, and studied plants, animals, soils and marine life on the Auckland and Campbell Island groups, as well as a few outliers.

Dr Cockayne, botanist, inspecting native florae. From the album: [1907 Sub-Antarctic Expedition]; circa 1908; North, W. November 1907, Auckland Islands. Page, Samuel. Te Papa

Dr Leonard Cockayne inspecting ‘Poa litorosa’. November 1907, Auckland Islands. Photo attributed to Samuel Page. Te Papa.

 The islands were of real interest to scientists, as they wanted to compare the distribution of species with other parts of the world.  The famous British botanist Joseph Hooker had studied plants near the coast during the 1840s, but no one had looked inland or at some of the smaller islands.  

The Expedition party was made up entirely of New Zealand scientists such as botanist Leonard Cockayne.  There was also a cook, the crew of their transport ship Hinemoa, and a small crew for a whaleboat to ferry the scientists about.   

Scientific members & assistants of the Expedition. From the album: [1907 Sub-Antarctic Expedition]; circa 1908; North, W. November 1907, Auckland Islands. Page, Samuel. Te Papa

Scientists and assistants of the Auckland Island party of the Expedition. November 1907. Front row: E R Waite, Doctors Cockayne, Benham and Farr. Middle row: G V Hudson, Captain Dorrien-Smith, H D Cook, B C Aston, J S Tennant, R Speight. Back row: S Page, A M Finlayson, G S Collyns, H B North. Photo attributed to Samuel Page. Te Papa

 

Whaleboat, used by Expedition, and crew in Carnley Harbour. From the album: [1907 Sub-Antarctic Expedition]; circa 1908; North, W. November 1907, Auckland Islands. Page, Samuel. Te Papa

Whaleboat and crew in Carnley Harbour. November 1907. The head of the crew was Whaitiri, from Ruapuke Island. Photo attributed to Samuel Page. Te Papa

The Hinemoa left Bluff on 14 November 1907, and returned at the end of the month.  The scientists made the most of their time on the islands by splitting between the Auckland Islands and Campbell Island.  This photo album was put together by the cook to the Auckland Islands group, Mr W B North, and donated to Te Papa by North’s son years later. 

Magnetic survey tent, Auckland Islands. From the album: [1907 Sub-Antarctic Expedition]; circa 1908; North, W. November 1907, Auckland Islands. Page, Samuel. Te Papa

Magnetic survey tent, Auckland Islands. November 1907. Photo attributed to Samuel Page. Te Papa

The expedition members were astounded to find a group of shipwrecked sailors on Auckland Island.  These men had survived the wreck of the barque Dundonald eight months before, and ate birds, seals and roots until they managed to reach the cache of emergency stores left by the Government.  Their story is an epic tale, so I’ll cover it in my next post.

Survivors of wreck of the barque "Dundonald". From the album: [1907 Sub-Antarctic Expedition]; circa 1908; North, W. November 1907, Auckland Islands. Page, Samuel. Te Papa

Survivors of wreck of the barque “Dundonald”. November 1907, Auckland Islands. Photo attributed to Samuel Page. Te Papa

The Expedition was a great success.   The scientists described a huge range of flora and fauna, and found a number of new species.  Some of the specimens they collected are now in Te Papa’s collection.  A detailed report was published in 1909 and was well received in the scientific world.  The trip was also covered by several newspapers – the Otago Witness did a two-page spread of photographs on Christmas Day, which includes some of the photos in this album.

Snares Island. From the album: [1907 Sub-Antarctic Expedition]; circa 1908; North, W. November 1907, Snares Islands. Page, Samuel. Te Papa

Penguin rookery, Snares Islands. November 1907. Attributed to Samuel Page. Te Papa

Graphania erebia (Hudson, 1909); holotype; holotype of Melanchra erebia Hudson, 1909, collected 29 Nov 1907, Erebus Cove, Port Ross. Auckland Islands. New Zealand. Te Papa

One of the specimens collected during the Expedition. Graphania erebia (Hudson, 1909); holotype; holotype of Melanchra erebia Hudson, 1909, collected 29 Nov 1907, Erebus Cove, Port Ross. Te Papa

Sea Lion on shore of Enderby Island. From the album: [1907 Sub-Antarctic Expedition]; circa 1908; North, W. November 1907, Auckland Islands. Page, Samuel. Te Papa

Sea Lion on shore of Enderby Island. November 1907. Attributed to Samuel Page. Te Papa

Views in Carnley Harbour. From the album: [1907 Sub-Antarctic Expedition]; circa 1908; North, W. November 1907, Auckland Islands. Page, Samuel. Te Papa

Views in Carnley Harbour. November 1907, Auckland Islands. Attributed to Samuel Page. Te Papa

Auckland Islands crab. From the album: [1907 Sub-Antarctic Expedition]; circa 1908; North, W. November 1907, Auckland Islands. Page, Samuel. Te Papa

Auckland Islands crab, November 1907. Attributed to Samuel Page. Te Papa

 

By Anita Hogan | Also posted in Art, Biodiversity, Collections Online, History, Photography | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Highlights from forget-me-not field trips from last summer

26 June 2012 – 9.58am

This year I went on several field trips to collect native forget-me-nots (genus Myosotis). With my research on native plantains now finished, my current research focus is now to figure out how many native species of forget-me-nots we have in New Zealand, revise their taxonomy, understand their evolutionary history, and amend their conservation status. Te Papa colleagues Jessie Prebble (see one of her blogs here) and Carlos Lehnebach are also collaborating on this project.

Field work (such as this trip to Taranaki in Nov 2011) is a key component of this work. And with wintry weather now keeping this botanist (and perhaps many of you!) mostly indoors, it’s the perfect time to put up a few photos and show you some of the highlights from these trips.

Chalk Range, Marlborough, South Island, Nov 2011.

 With the collaboration of Department of Conservation botanists Jan Clayton-Greene and Cathy Jones, we found several different forget-me-not entities on the Chalk Range, including this one, which has been given the tag-name Myosotis aff. australis “white”.

Habitat of Myosotis aff. australis "white" in the Chalk Range, Marlborough, South Island (WELT SP090551). Photo by Heidi Meudt, copyright Te Papa.

Habitat of Myosotis aff. australis “white” in the Chalk Range, Marlborough, South Island (WELT SP090551). Photo by Heidi Meudt, copyright Te Papa.

Flowers of Myosotis aff. australis "white" from the Chalk Range, Marlborough, South Island (WELT SP090551). Photo by Heidi Meudt, copyright Te Papa.

Flowers of Myosotis aff. australis “white” from the Chalk Range, Marlborough, South Island (WELT SP090551). Photo by Heidi Meudt, copyright Te Papa.

 

Myosotis aff. australis "white" in the Chalk Range, Marlborough, South Island (WELT SP090551). Photo by Heidi Meudt, copyright Te Papa.

Myosotis aff. australis “white” in the Chalk Range, Marlborough, South Island (WELT SP090551). Photo by Heidi Meudt, copyright Te Papa.

Inland Hawkes Bay ranges, Dec 2011.

On this trip, I teamed up with Jessie Prebble, Mike Thorsen, and several landowners to search for forget-me-nots that had been previously collected in this area. Although we didn’t find all the ones we were hoping for, we did find some big populations of Myosotis spathulata, shown here.

Habitat of Myosotis spathulata, Hukanui Station, Hawke's Bay, North Island (WELT SP090628). Photo by Heidi Meudt, copyright Te Papa.

Habitat of Myosotis spathulata, Hukanui Station, Hawke’s Bay, North Island (WELT SP090628). Photo by Heidi Meudt, copyright Te Papa.

Flower of Myosotis spathulata, Hukanui Station, Hawke's Bay, North Island (WELT SP090628). Photo by Heidi Meudt, copyright Te Papa.

Flower of Myosotis spathulata, Hukanui Station, Hawke’s Bay, North Island (WELT SP090628). Photo by Heidi Meudt, copyright Te Papa.

Myosotis spathulata, Hukanui Station, Hawke's Bay, North Island (WELT SP090628). Photo by Heidi Meudt, copyright Te Papa.

Myosotis spathulata, Hukanui Station, Hawke’s Bay, North Island (WELT SP090628). Photo by Heidi Meudt, copyright Te Papa.

Queenstown area, Otago, South Island, Feb 2012.

For this trip, Phil Garnock-Jones and local botanist Neill Simpson accompanied me on yet another forget-me-not field trip (we were also collecting speedwell hebes on this trip, which you can read about here). As you can see from all the photos on this page, the morphological diversity of the different species of forget-me-nots is truly astounding!

Myosotis pulvinaris, Shotover Saddle, Otago, South Island (WELT SP091594/A). This cushion plant was just past flowering. Just imagine what it would have looked like covered with flowers! Photo by Phil Garnock-Jones.

Myosotis pulvinaris, Shotover Saddle, Otago, South Island (WELT SP091594/A). This cushion plant was just past flowering. Just imagine what it would have looked like covered with flowers! Photo by Phil Garnock-Jones.

Myosotis macrantha, near Queenstown, Otago, South Island (WELT SP091596). Photo by Phil Garnock-Jones.

Myosotis macrantha, near Queenstown, Otago, South Island (WELT SP091596). Photo by Phil Garnock-Jones.

Here I am collecting Myosotis on a beautiful day on Coronet Peak, Otago, South Island.

Here I am collecting Myosotis on a beautiful day on Coronet Peak, Otago, South Island.

Next month I’ll be giving a talk at the Botany 2012 Conference on some of our recent forget-me-not research. I’ll show our latest results using DNA sequencing and DNA fingerprinting to look at how the different species of New Zealand Myosotis are related to one another. You can see the abstract here.

See some of Te Papa’s Myosotis collection here.

By Heidi Meudt | Also posted in forget-me-nots, Plants | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

West Coast Fern Fieldwork 2012, 6 – animal miscellany

21 June 2012 – 6.22pm

Here are a few, token animal photos to finish this account of our fieldwork.

South Island fernbird, Bowdleria punctata punctata, in manuka bordering tangle fern (Gleichenia)-dominated pakihi near Westport. This was the first fernbird I have ever seen/noticed, but we saw/heard several others elsewhere during our trip. Unfortunately my camera is optimised for close-ups (since plants don’t run away), and has a terrible zoom – hence this blurry picture. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

A western weka, Gallirallus australis australis, making a mess of DOC’s lawn. Enchanting birds, but somewhat of a road hazard, and evidently careless gardeners. Tauranga Bay, Cape Foulwind, near Westport. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

c. 10 cm long slug, Stockton. I nearly stepped on it during my excitement of finding a couple of uncommon ferns. The slug’s impressive size was enough to distract me from the ferns, momentarily. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Mammals impersonating slugs – seals at Tauranga Bay, Cape Foulwind, near Westport. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

South Island robins, Petroica australis australis, are regular companions during forest walks in many parts of the South Island. Photo Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Other blog posts about our West Coast fern fieldwork cover:

What we were doing.

Where we went.

Sticherus (umbrella ferns).

New, problematic, and interesting species.

Favourite photos.

By Leon Perrie | Also posted in Biodiversity, Birds, Ferns, Plants | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (5)
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