Trip Report – 5 April 2014 :   Wi Tako Scenic Reserve, Upper Hutt

We climbed Rangi’s Track through Forest and Bird’s Ecclesfield Reserve (5 ha), where people had to be stopped botanising, because we had to get to the top of it to enter Eagle’s Nest Track, Wi Tako Ngatata Scenic Reserve (60 ha), to start botanising.   We used a new track skirting around the base of a regenerating hillside, crossing several wet gullies.   Highlights were adding Collospermum hastatumand Cyathea smithii the plant list.   We saw a lot of Gahnia pauciflora and G. setifolia.   There is also the uncommon G. rigida near where we walked, but we were unable to find it.   We found the weedy Pseudopanax lessonii hybrids, Cotoneaster franchetii, Erica arborea / tree heath and a white-flowered jasmine, then had lunch in a grove of black beech beside a stream with two small Syzygium maire / swamp maire on its banks.

Participants :   Bev Abbott, Gavin Dench, Bryan Halliday, Anthony Hill (deputy leader), Chris Hopkins, Chris Horne, Sheena Hudson, Rodney Lewington, Pat McLean, Barbara Mitcalfe, Chris Moore, Grant Roberts, Hugh Robertson, Lea Robertson, Nick Saville (leader/scribe), Darea Sherratt, Sunita Singh.