Canterbury BOTSOC visit Ashley Gorge

On Saturday 12 December 2015 Canterbury BOTSOC members traveled from Ashley Gorge to Lees valley and made records of plants along the roadside. The remnants of mountain beech forest ares fringed with broafleaf trees (putaputaweta, five0-finer, boradleaf, horoeka, mountain-ribbonwood) andd manuka, kanuka, korokio and matagouri scrub. Steep greywacke rock outcrops, rubbly scree, and bluffs have a distinct flora characterised by Heliohebe raoulia subsp. raoulii, dwarf brooms, Copromsa acerosa/brunnea, Exocarpus bidwillii and Helichrysum intermedium. Land cleared of woody vegetation often has a cover of pasture with scattered silver tussock, coprosma species and Aciphylla subflabellata. Blocks of plantation forest have been established, including some Douglas fir.Gores and broom a common and succed to scrub. Parts of the roadside scrub have been killed by herbicide spray. It will soon return to gorse and broom. menos ↑