Fine Slides Of South Island Scenery Shown

Chronicle (Levin), 3 September 1948, Page 4

Fine Slides Of South Island Scenery Shown

A recent visitor to 'Levin was Dr. Greta Cone, who brought with her I a fine collection of lantern slides c showing various aspects of the t South Island West Coast scenery 1 and vegetation. These she showed and described at a meeting of i the Levin Native Flora Club. The ] slides were tne .work of the vet- ] eran tramper, Mr. A. P. Harper, i whose exploration and surveying ( at the close of last century included carrying a heavy plate camera 1 and chemicals for developing his photographs. That this was very successful photographically, was shoym by the clarity and beauty ] of the slides, which compared favourably with modem photo- : graphy achieved so much iess i arduously. The many trampers i swelling the club's ranks of the i evening would particularly appreciate the difhculties of travelling ; in much of the country depicted. Describing the West Coast, Dr. Cone pointed out that its vegeta- j tion was a background to its distinctiveness. "There is an ex- : tremely heavy rainfall on a narrow strip of land only a few miles wide, bordered on the west by the ocean and on the east by high mountains. In this narrow strip occurs a variety of conditions, " each producing its own vegetation, and distinct in appearance. Some plants, abundant in the North 'Island, for instance the nikau and the mountain cabbage tree, occur in the South Island only on the West Coast and in a small area to the north. Much of the West Coast forest is a rimu-rata-kamahi association. In the drier parts there are patches of beech forest sharply demarcated from the rimu bush. Little islands on some of the West Coast lakes are clothed entirely with rata which, when fiowering, look like little red berets floating on the water. The extremely wet climate encourages excessive growth of jferns and mosses. Fhmy ferns 1 seem to belong specially to the West Coast, species. attaining a length of a few inches elsewhere being measured in feet in such extreme humidity, while hummocks of moss rise in luxuriance ,'from the forest floor. ! "The glaciers, Franz Josef and jFox; ' are unique in temperate countries by coming so close to |the sea. Their terminal faces are only a few hundred feet above sea level. Thus the ice of the glaciers is surrounded by luxuriant forest, giving scenic contrasts rich in interest and beauty. Scrub occurs in Westland in a variety of conditions. It is found on tho impoverished soil at the terminal face of a glacier, and on old moraines, on the steep si'des of ice-worn rocks besides Franz Josef, and j above the bushline, where growth is rjestricted by severe climate and high winds. Well up on the 'mountains, on steep screes, may be found' a dark and 'solfd-looking covering of mountain totara. "The beech forests have their enemies in the shape of mistletoe and bracket fungus. By the time a fungus f.orms a large bracket on the side of a tree trunk, one may know that the interior of the trunk is rotten and eaten up by the fungus spawn. This spawn is the vegetative (growing) part of a fungus, whereas the bracket is the reproductive (fruiting) part," said the speaker. "Some interesting 'detaiis of ferns were described. A specimen of the mountain tree fern (Alsophila) in tussock and scrub above the main bush had been dug up to-show how a number of short heads are joined to each other by means of underground connections, the whole seeming, when exposed, rather like an octopus.- Thickets of the taller-growing tree . ferns pccur where there have been slipst;,'b^ stream-be'ds. A colony of tree ferns . (Dicksonia squarrosa) by the side of an old track was laboriously investigated by two ardent field botanists, Messrs. Scott Thomson and Simpson. They found by scraping around the foot 'of all the tree ferns that all the trunks were connecte'd underground, proving that the colony had orlginated from one plant." Dr. Cone's clear explanations and descriptions of the lantern slides made for easy listening, and her au'dience spent an enjoyable evening. While she was still in Levin, an opportunity was taken of visiting a familiar but always pleasant patch of forest hidden in the sandhills near Hokio. Dr. Cone's special interest, fungus, was - well and variously - represented, and a special thrill was the discovery of a "new" orchid, very 'daintily fiowering. This appears to be Acianthus reniformis variety oblongus, one of the gnat or mosquito orchids. As well as resembling these tiny flies in a larger size, the orchids rely on such for pollina/tion.