Aotearoa’s Native Plants & Birds

Wednesday, 19 October 2022, 1:19 pm
Press Release: howard davis

To help increase our understanding of Aotearoa’s unique eco-system, Te Papa Press has produced a pair of small, but delightful volumes on New Zealand’s native birds and plants. They provide handy introductions to the unique birdlife and flora of Aotearora - “for the backyard, bach, and backpack.”

About eighty-five million years ago, New Zealand split away from the supercontinent Gondwana. On board, were plants and animals that evolved without predatory land mammals. Most plants and animals arrived here after crossing the ocean and many developed unusual features as they evolved in relative isolation.

Since New Zealand drifted away from the super-continent, a unique flora and fauna evolved, leaving a land full of fascinating plants and animal life. Like other regions separated from the rest of the world for a long period, it developed a distinct biodiversity, about seventy-five percent of which is unique and includes some of the world's oldest plant forms. Many species are endemic (i.e. found nowhere else), such as the flightless kiwi and the giant kauri tree.

New Zealand was once almost covered in forest, with hundreds of bird species. Sea mammals include whales and dolphins, but apart from seals and two species of bats, there are no indigenous land mammals, which is why there is also a great diversity of indigenous bird life, including breeding and migratory species. As people cut down forests and brought rats, possums, stoats, and cats from overseas, at least half of bird species became extinct.

Only four types of frog remain, but tens of thousands of different insects (such as stick insects and wētā) thrive in most habitats. Native eels, water snails, sandflies and crayfish live in the rivers. The only poisonous native animal is the katipō spider, living on sandy beaches.

The flowering plants, conifers, ferns, lycopods, and other vascular tracheophytes that constitute much of the land vegetation show affinities with plants of the Malayan region, supporting the theory of an ancient land bridge between the two regions. There are more than 2,500 native plant types (including flowering plants, ferns and conifers) and over 5,800 types of fungi, such as mushrooms, in Aotearoa. The mountains are home to tussocks, daisies, and shrubs with bright berries.

Over two hundred and fifty plant species are common to both Australia and New Zealand. The Antarctic element, comprising more than seventy species related to forms in the flora of South America and the Southern Ocean islands, is of special interest to botanists. The kauri pine, world famous for its timber, is now found only in parts of the North Island.

The rimu and the totara also are timber trees. Other handsome trees include the pohutukawa and other species of rata and kowhai. New Zealand flax, formerly of great importance in the Maori economy, is found in swampy places. Undergrowth in the damp forests consists largely of ferns, of which there are one hundred and forty-five species. They clothe most of the tree trunks and branches and tree ferns form part of the foliage. Tussock grass occurs on all mountains above the scrub line and over large areas in the South Island.

Swamps and river banks have rushes, cabbage trees, flax, and bulrushes. On the coast, trees like karaka and ngaio have thick, tough leaves that can withstand salt winds. Some patches of original, old-growth forest still survive, like kauri and rims The conifer-broadleaf forests resemble tropical rainforests, with a canopy, lush foliage, and thick carpets of ferns and mosses.

Native Plants of Aotearoa is a handsomely illustrated guide to fifty of our most interesting and commonly encountered species. Written by Te Papa botanists, it includes useful descriptions on each species and insights into the museum’s fieldwork and collections. Up to fifteen percent of the total land area of New Zealand is still covered with native flora, from tall kauri and kohekohe forests to rainforest dominated by rimu, beech, tawa, matai and rata; ferns and flax; dunelands with their spinifex and pingao; alpine and subalpine herb fields; and scrub and tussock.

Dr Carlos Lehnebach (Te Papa Curator Botany) studies the diversity, evolution and conservation of New Zealand flowering plants. His main groups of interest are terrestrial and epiphytic orchids, alpine plants, and plants shared with other land masses in the Southern Hemisphere. Dr Heidi Meudt (Te Papa Curator Botany) is a researcher whose collections-based research focuses on the evolution and classification of native New Zealand flowering plants, especially forget-me-nots. Her research aims to update the taxonomy and conservation status of all native forget-me-nots.

The illustrations used in Native Plants of Aotearoa have a fascinating history. They are based on sketches by Sydney Parkinson, the artist on board HMS Endeavour during the 1768–71 expedition led by Captain James Cook. Sadly he died on the return journey so after the voyage, expedition botanist Joseph Banks employed five artists to complete his sketches, and eighteen engravers to create exquisite copperplate line engravings from these drawings.

Te Papa holds a set of these plates, gifted to the Colonial Museum in the 1890s. They were originally intended to illustrate Thomas Kirk’s The Students’ Flora of New Zealand and the Outlying Islands (1899), the first book about the flora of Aotearoa by a resident botanist. Unfortunately, Kirk died before the book was published and the prints were not included.

Part of the new Te Taiao Nature Series, ‘Native Birds of Aotearoa’ is an equally accessible guide to native birds that concisely describes sixty of our most interesting species, including forest, garden, wetland, coastal, alpine and marine birds, reflecting the range of subtropical, temperate, and subantarctic habitats.

Among the flightless birds, the most famous is obviously the kiwi, the only bird in the world with nostrils at the tip of the bill instead of at the base. Other characteristic birds are the kea, a mountain parrot, and the tui, a beautiful songbird. All but one of the genera of penguins are represented in New Zealand. Several species of birds, the most famous being the Pacific godwit, migrate from breeding grounds in the Arctic Circle to spend spring and summer in New Zealand.

Written by Michael Szabo, with an introduction by Alan Tennyson, it is published in collaboration with Birds New Zealand and includes ornithological notes on each species as well as compelling insights into the museum’s fieldwork and collections. Szabo is editor of Birds New Zealand magazine and a contributor to New Zealand Birds Online. He was the principal author of ‘Wild Encounters - A Forest & Bird guide to discovering NZ’s unique wildlife,’ and has written for the New Scientist, NZ Geographic, and Sunday Star-Times.

Tennyson (Curator Vertebrates Te Papa) researches vertebrate animal groups, but his particular expertise is in fossils and living birds. His current research focuses on the history and origins of New Zealand’s animals and the conservation of seabirds in the South Pacific.

For Native Birds of Aotearoa the illustrations were largely reproduced from charming drawings originally done in the 1930s and first brought to life by prolific author Alexander Wyclif (Clif) Reed (under the pen name of Charles Masefield) in Native Birds (1948) and More Birds (1951), published by AH & AW Reed. Not every species included in the book had original illustrations, while others were not as accurate as required, so a number of additional entries have been carefully created or redrawn in the same style with the guidance of the authors by illustrator Pippa Keel, an award-winning illustration designer, who has both an Honours degree in illustration and a huge love of the outdoors.

Both books in this lightweight, hardback series are designed by Tim Denee, who has created have a crisp look and feel that makes them ideal not only for nature walks and bush tramping, but also using at home.

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Howard Davis

Scoop Arts Editor

Educated at Cambridge and UCLA; worked on several major Hollywood feature films and as a Kundalini Yoga instructor in Los Angeles; currently enjoying life in Wellington.

Contact Howard Davis

• Email - howard@scoop.co.nz