ALPINE DAISIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 October 1940, Page 7

ALPINE DAISIES

AN UNUSUAL CROP FOUND IN FOOTHILLS AT CASTLEPOINT. A SCIENTIST'S OBSERVATIONS. An unusual outcrop of mountain daisies, ordinarily an alpine plant found at high altitudes, within a few hundred feet of sea-level in the hills behind Castlepoint was observed by the director of the Dominion Museum, Dr. W. R. B. Oliver, during a recent visit. He said he saw these daisies, ordinarily found at above 3500 feet in the Tararua Ranges, growing as low as 1500 feet. They appeared ’quite common among manuka scrub on the hills there. Asked if he thought the unusual occurrence of the daisies at so low a level in this particular district would be due to some peculiarity of soil or climate, he expressed the opinion that it might be the result of the frequency of sea fog on those hills. Dr. Oliver said he also observed that the kowhai growing in the locality, and found throughout the district, including Masterton, was the large-leafed form, a different species from the small-leaf-ed kowhai of the Wellington district. The large-leafed kowhai was interesting, he said, in that Banks and Solandcr, the two eminent botanists who accompanied Captain Cook on his firs! voyage, took back seeds of this species to England and planted them in the Chelsea medical gardens; and it was from the trees grown from those seeds and not from actual New Zealand na-tive-grown specimens that the largeleafed kowhai was first described. Native bird-life appeared scarce in the Castlepoint district. Though he saw banded dotterel and various kinds of sea-birds. Dr. Oliver observed only four species of native bush-birds —tut, grey warbler, kingfisher and morepork. Magpies and introduced birds were plentiful,