Botanist Newsletter
Issue No. 26, May to August 1999
Mt Cavendish
The north-west bluffs of Mt Cavendish were visited several times as part of the monitoring of Ecological Heritage Sites. Part of Mt Cavendish is EHS 27.06 and the other part is EHS 28.06. The southern bluffs are not listed as an EHS because they are outside the city boundary, however they also have excellent vegetation.
Ecological Heritage Sites Pamphlets
Work has begun on producing a series of pamphlets with information about the Ecological Heritage Sites that are listed in the City Plan. An initial pamphlet will explain the concept behind the sites and the criteria that was used in selecting them.
More detailed pamphlets on the various types of site (e.g. Forest, Grassland, Wetlands, Coastal) are also planned. (For further information contact Jenny Ridgen, Ph 9418 407)
Spartina
The estuarine weed spartina (a grass) was recently found in the South Brighton wetland, growing adjacent to the boardwalk. Coastcare have been alerted and they will be controlling spartina in this area.
Spartina is essentially under control within Christchurch City, but ongoing eradication of such re-appearances will be required.
Rare Plant
One of the apprentices at the Botanic Gardens (Richard Pender) has been propagating several different rare plants, including the swamp nettle Urtica linearifolia. This species is at risk primarily through habitat loss.
About 30 plants have been planted into several different council reserves, including Janet Stewart Reserve. There is also a significant number of swamp nettle plants at Lake Ellesmere.
Port Hills Reserves
A project team has been investigating the management of vegetation in the Port Hills Reserves. The primary values that the reserves need to be managed for are conservation, visual amenity and recreation.
Some of the reserves are mainly forest vegetation and grazing needs to be excluded, e.g. Ahuriri Scenic Reserve and Jollies Bush. Other sites are mostly grassland vegetation and light grazing is probably the most appropriate management technique. The detailed requirement for individual reserves is being investigated. An overall policy is also being drafted for the council to consider.
Weed Training
The final group of Works Ops staff have now completed their weed training and received certificates.
Copies of the Waterway Plant Guide have also been distributed to contract supervisors within the Parks Unit.
Egeria
Following the discovery of egeria in the Avon River, an additional page has been created for the Waterway Plant Guide, to enable staff to recognise Egeria densa. The river crews have also had an additional training session to assist them to recognise egeria. So far, no additional sites have been found within the City.
Canterbury Regional Council have produced an "egeria poster" which will be put up at rowing clubs in Kerrs Reach to inform the rowers about egeria. In particular, we would like them to clean their boats thoroughly before shifting them around.
Work on eradication of egeria (using suction dredging) is expected to commence early September.
Waterways & Wetlands Asset Management Strategy
The waterways and wetlands team is taking a values-based approach to management of the natural and physical resources of Christchurch waterways, wetlands and drainage. The city has been divided into about 14 project areas. Future protection, restoration and maintenance options within each area are being explored.
A series of maps displaying natural environment information were created to assist this exercise. The information layers available for this sort of exercise includes waterways, springs, natural area sites, Ecological Heritage Sites, the vegetation in 1856 ("black maps") and soils.
Some project areas requested additional detailed botanical information and this was supplied from the Natural Areas Database.
Waimakariri Wetlands
Consultation with Canterbury Regional Council regarding wetlands along the Waimakariri River has been held. There has also been some botanical survey work carried out to identify significant wetlands both on aerial photographs and on the ground.
Wetlands Database
An additional front-end database has been set up to record wetland data for the Waterways & Wetlands Team of Water Services. At present this database is linked to the Natural Areas (back-end) database.
Andrew Crossland has been entering bird data and the database already contains a lot of plant information from previous wetland surveys. Other kinds of information are also included.
Tree Manager
The councils' tree manager software has been updated to work more successfully over the councils' network and out to the Service Centers. This will enable staff at other locations (e.g. Area Parks Officers and Contract Supervisors) to enter data and to view existing data.
In addition, combining all of the information in one location will give the council a much better understanding of the amounts, types and timing of tree work being carried out.
Mapping in the Botanic Gardens
Work has commenced on recording details of plants in the Botanic Gardens. There is an existing hand-out that maps the trees in the pinetum, which is the area adjacent to the Riccarton Ave entrance, that is planted in conifers. This area is being used as a pilot area for a more extensive project to record plant details. The resulting Plant Collections Database is linked to a map layer and therefore will be available on the GIS.
City Design has already been mapping plant locations, which enables us to concentrate on attaching attribute information such as species, age etc.
Foreshore Maps
A series of maps of the foreshore have been produced for Coastcare who are updating their main resource document. The maps combine aerial photographs with land parcels and zoning information. The series of maps will assist planning and administration of the area by Coastcare.
Viewing Maps
A new (and free!) software product is enabling staff that do not have GIS software to view and print maps that have been set up by someone with MapInfo. There is a wealth of information available in GIS on the council network and this will enable a far greater number of staff to access it.
Mosquitos
Canterbury Public Health has been continuing meetings regarding the potential for mosquito incursions and the most appropriate response.
Library Additions
The latest additions to the botanical library, available to council staff to borrow, are:
Nicol ER (1997) Common Names of Plants in New Zealand. Manaaki Whenua Press.
This is a standardised list of common names with their corresponding scientific name. There are two lists; one sorted both by common name and the other by scientific name.
Parsons MJ, Douglas P, Macmillan BH (1998) Current Names for Wild Plants in New Zealand. Manaaki Whenua Press.
This is an updated list of the generally accepted scientific names for wild plants in New Zealand, both native and exotic. It covers taxonomic changes up to 1995.
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