Tiny Plants with a Dark Secret - sundews

Sometimes I just have to stop and take a look around when I am out hiking or walking, there are so many things I know I'd miss seeing otherwise. It makes me wonder whether cyclists and runners know what they are missing out on. It's a fine balance of course, if you're always stopping you never get far, and sometimes far is the place you need to be to see even more amazing sights!

Walking with some botanically minded friends up Clay Ridge in Remutaka Forest Park, meant that there were three of us with sharp eyes. One of us spotted these sundew plants. So we stopped to take a closer look. It helped to have a magnifying glass and lens.

Sundew, photo Ian Goodwin

Exploring Patterns in Nature - finding fractals in nature

What patterns do you notice in nature?
There's something special that these nature patterns have in common.

Branching patterns

My Nature Journal - Best of 2018

Summer 2018

Tūī chick in my garden

One of the most memorable experiences last summer was getting up close to a tūī chick in the garden and watching the brood flourish. I wrote about it in my most popular blogposts: Tūī Takeover. Our tūī provide a source of both interest and entertainment all year round. And...

A Coastal Walk - naming the plants

Volunteer work takes me for a walk along the coast several mornings a month in summer.  Walking the same path, day after day, isn't dull or a chore. 

The path along the coast, white-faced heron ahead

Each day, I see something different, depending perhaps on the weather or the tide, or I see something differently. Sometimes there are big changes: a storm leaves soft-bodied jelly fish and bright orange sponges stranded on the beach and covers the path with driftwood. 

Out and About in Spring - clematis and other plants to see

A single clematis flower fallen to the forest floor

Out and about in Wellington in spring, it would be hard to miss the clematis in flower.

Clematis paniculata or Puawhananga is a native vine that festoons the forest. It's easiest to see on the edges of the forest or looking down on to the canopy.

My tramping group got curious about the clematis flowers looking different. So back home I did some research.

Return to Rakiura - Stewart Island

Sunrise from Fred's Camp

Rakiura means 'glowing skies' and the soft pastel colours in the sky around Stewart Island on my recent visit showed again and again the appropriateness of this Maori place name. Views like this sunrise above were nearly enough to turn this writer to taking up water-colour painting!

Weeds or Wild Flowers - What do we See?

One person's weed is another person's garden flower. I've seen the delight in the eye of visitors from Europe when they saw what they took to be garden flowers such as white Arum lilies (Zantedeschia) or blue Agapanthus flowering by our roadsides.

Arum Lilies spreading alongside a pathway

It's not just visitors who see them as delightful wild flowers or as garden plants, lots of locals do too. But how we see them doesn't alter the fact that these and many other imported plants grow, and spread, like wild fire in New Zealand's climate. They encroach on dunes, on bush remnants, on stream banks pushing out native plants and reducing our,  and therefore the world's, biodiversity.

Behind the Scenes - Nature at Te Papa

Usually I'm out and about exploring nature - outside. But recently Wellington's 150th Capital Anniversary provided a special opportunity to explore nature indoors. An open day at the museum - Te Papa Tongarewa - was a unique chance to see some of the treasures stored there.

The day started with a guided behind-the-scenes tour of the Botany collection. Te Papa's curators had carefully selected some treasures to show us, from plants collected by Solander on Cook's 1st voyage 1768-1771

Solander's collection orchid and tree fern

to the now extinct Cook's scurvy plant

Seeing Plants with New Eyes - learning the language of plants

Gillian Candler reviews the NMIT Plant Identification course

An informative guided walk at Otari/Wilton's Bush last year spurred me on to join the local Botanical Society. I’m a children’s author so sometimes take a childlike view of things, I get excited by Hen and Chicken’s Ferns

Hen and Chickens Fern

and Puriri moths in Putaputaweta trees, I love the statuesque Wheki-ponga that look like people wearing cloaks and I delight at discovering hanging orchids.  But listening to members of the Botanical Society I often feel like a stranger in a foreign land who can only say ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ in that language, a good conversation being out of the question.