Patchwork

The northern end of a peninsula in the Cook Strait is healing after a century of farming and mining. The landscape is scaling over in a patchwork of blue-greens, purple and browns. Ozothamnus leptophyllus (tauhinu) plays a large role in pioneering the conditions for subsequent plants to grow. This particular peninsula has never seen gorse (Ulex europaeus), because it has never been planted here and the length of the peninsula effectively makes it an island. Other than pheasants and quail, which do not feature greatly here, gorse is largely spread by wind. There absence of competition from gorse allows tauhinu to proliferate through the dispersal of its tiny, down-covered daisy seeds which establish themselves easily on bare soils and pastures.

The first in series, is a population of columnar Coprosma rhamnoides which forms an ethereal slope. Their apparent lightness is helped by the contrast of dense green mounds of māhoe and Oleria rani. The wind also shears the leaves, so that a lattice of silvery twigs allows light to pass and reflect. The second, is a westerly slope dotted by tufted single trunked cabbage trees. Stretching for kilometres and growing down to sea level. The third, is a pocket where Dracophyllum filifolium erupts from a rock outcrop with Blechnum novae-zelandiae, Metrosideros perforata and Phormium cookianum.

Coastal forest comprised of Dysoxylum spectabile (kohekohe) and Pennantia corymbosa (kaikomako) is beginning to take hold in valleys and further toward the mainland. Tauhinu is responsible for the silvery-green and purple tones present in much of this landscape. The most striking example is the eight image, where a strong colour gradient establishes on this bluff. A very healthy population of Veronica parviflora starts as a dense, lime-green mass further inland. It diffuses into an even distribution of singular rounded shrubs amongst tauhinu and finally wanes closer to the coast.