Replanting a rare tussock

Forest and Bird, Volume 23, Issue 2, 1 May 1992, Page 5

Replanting a rare tussock

A REPLANTING and protection programme is giving an endangered Fiordland tussock a chance at survival. Te Anau conservation officer Nick Torr said the spiral snow tussock, Chionochloa spiralis, was known from only three places — Takahe Valley in the Murchison Mountains, Lake Monk near Preservation Inlet in the far south of Fiordland, and Mount Luxmore near Te Anau (see Forest & Bird February 1990). In Takahe Valley a few hundred tussocks grew on limestone ledges where deer could not reach. Little was known about those at Lake Monk. On Mt Luxmore there was just one plant. Department of Conservation staff collected seed from this survivor and 50 seedlings were propagated at the department’s Home Creek Nursery, near Manapouni. Last year these were replanted on Mt Luxmore, near the parent plant. Mr Torr revisited these

earlier this year. Most of the young tussocks had survived and he put plastic mesh covers Over some to stop hares grazing them. DoC hopes the planted area can be left open to the public which is near the main Luxmore cave, just a few minutes from Luxmore Hut on the Kepler Track. Information about the tussock and the replanting programme would be posted at the hut and at the planted area. The Takahe Valley spiral snow tussock population seemed quite strong at present, though the plants appeared to be vulnerable to tramping and browsing by deer, Mr Torr said. Tillers (shoots) from one of the Takahe Valley plants had also been grown into small tussocks at the nursery, and staff hope to check on the Lake Monk population later this year. The recovery programme was based on the research of DSIR botanist Dr Bill Lee, who wrote a report on the tussock in 1989.