Overview
In January 2022, Botany Curator Heidi Meudt made botanical collections in ultramafic areas of Southland during a 7-day field trip with an ambitious itinerary. Brian Rance (Department of Conservation) accompanied her on the entire trip. Other botanists and volunteers, including John Barkla, Marilyn Barkla, Geoff Rogers and Mary Bruce, plus landowners Grant and Katie Catto, also came along and assisted at some of the sites. They visited the following areas:
- Black Ridge
- Livingstone Mountains
- Fiordland National Park (Cascade Creek and Boyd Creek headwaters)
- Bald Hill
- Coal Hill
Fourteen populations of four native Myosotis species were collected. A herbarium specimen and leaf samples for DNA research were collected for each species to help address key research questions as part of Te Papa's Myosotis research program.
Other indigenous and naturalised species were also collected as part of general Te Papa collection development to improve our knowledge of what grows where in New Zealand. They also made several collections of Azorella (Apiaceae) for the PhD research project of Weixuan Ning, Massey University, who is co-supervised by Heidi.
Most of the collection records and photos of plants we collected on this trip can be seen here (scroll down to "Related Objects" below).