Native Seedlings starting to appear in recently cleared areas

A Project has been created for the seedlings of Gahnia Grove.
https://inaturalist.nz/projects/native-seedlings-of-gahnia-grove
That Project's "Journal" has a little more background to this monitoring, in a "Journal" post linked directly here:
https://inaturalist.nz/projects/native-seedlings-of-gahnia-grove/journal/20928-how-many-native-seedlings-in-the-neighbourhood

The native seedlings present in June 2018 under manuka/kanuka canopy and among the 3-4mH planted trees on the uphill margin of the Apron and Annexe have continued to grow slowly in the dry, rocky soil - which, we are told by a passerby of 60 years local residence, is likely to be roadworks fill moved from Glenfield Rd during its widening and lowering here a decade or so ago. (That explains the number of pieces of road metal found among the trees here, and the fact that stones were difficult and sometimes impossible to avoid when driving the cordon pigtail-posts into the top 10cm of soil recently).

Annexe - The few "Original" seedlings in the Annexe have recently been supplemented by dozens of tiny manuka or kanuka seedlings, numerous karamu, mapou and totara, a few pseudopanax, and a few of other species, especially at the light-exposed park-entry end, under a dead manuka and karamu released June 2018 from light honeysuckle coverage, and where ground was released from a vast mass of dead pampas foliage.

Apron - The area occupied until June 2018 by Elaeagnus now has numerous very small seedlings of karamu, mapou and occasional others. Near the kikuyu margin, around the base of a large leafy karamu, there are occasional seedlings of the same species as in the Annexe, with the addition of a few kahikatea.

The clay banks of the Arena, and Cape Honey Flower (CHF) Bank, completely bared by release of both ground and defoliated trees from honeysuckle, blackberry, kikuyu and CHF, have few native seedlings as yet. Those that have germinated so far are mainly ti kouka, karamu, and mapou, with manuka/kanuka on CHF Bank around a manuka surviving in the previously-sprayed mown-kikuyu margin. Most of these seedlings are near the canopy margin, at the base of surviving trees, or sheltered and shaded by wild carrot, ox tongue etc. All these areas tend to have more moisture and a little humus from decayed weed material or leaf litter.

Toatoa (Haloragis erecta), a wonderful nurse plant for native seedlings, reproduces itself readily through its abundant seed production. Seed has now been collected from a number of toatoa plants in the Reserve network and been cast throughout Gahnia Grove. In addition, a single mature specimen has been discovered at the top of Flame Tree Bank, released from vine weeds and CHF, presumably responsible for the few newly germinated toatoa seedlings nearby. These seedlings are ideally placed to nurture native seedlings along the kikuyu margin and the top of the bank.

Observations of many of the native seedlings observed so far in Gahnia Grove, arranged by date observed, scan be seen here:
https://inaturalist.nz/observations?order=asc&order_by=observed_on&page=2&place_id=any&project_id=native-seedlings-of-gahnia-grove&subview=grid

NB This list has been sorted with the oldest first, and the newer observations, on Page 2, can take a short while to load.

Also NB, we have just discovered this "Explore" function of iNat. Now or in the future, anyone interested in seeing a particular species,date range, or part of Gahnia Grove, or indeed anywhere in the world, can change or refine their Search using the Filters. Note the link "More filters".

Posted on January 22, 2019 09:50 PM by kaipatiki_naturewatch