Bog Pimpernel and an Imposter

 

bog pimpernel - Lysimachia tenella

bog pimpernel - Lysimachia tenella

This pretty little wild flower is bog pimpernel - Lysimachia tenella. It grows in marshy places. I found this one growing along side sundew and pale butterwort very near to one of my adder's tongue fern spots in Argyll.

bog pimpernel - Lysimachia tenella

Having found it once last summer, I have been keeping an eye out, to see if is coming up anywhere else. All through this spring, I kept seeing these plants in various places (not just bogs.) It is almost the same but not quite right. I had to wait till this May for one to flower so that I could identify it:

New Zealand willowherb - Epilobium brunnescens

New Zealand willowherb - Epilobium brunnescens. Which first got off the boat from New Zealand in Edinburgh in 1904 and has been spreading across the countryside ever since. Interestingly, the third record for it outside of Edinburgh is from Ardrishaig - not far from here in 1911.

New Zealand willowherb - Epilobium brunnescens

It does very well in the climate of northern and western Britain and colonises wet, bare ground - ditches and forestry tracks are likely spots, but also gardens and river banks.

New Zealand willowherb - Epilobium brunnescens

New Zealand willowherb - Epilobium brunnescens

New Zealand native Chanterelles

Cantharellus wellingtoniensis

Native to New Zealand's forests, Cantharellus wellingoniensis is smaller and paler, but still quite similar to the European Cantharellus cibarius.

O'Neill Bay

O'Neill Bay, Waitakere Ranges, New Zealand.

Brown Oyster Mushroom

Monday Mushroom #102

This is Pleurotus australis - a large, brown oyster mushroom from Australia and New Zealand. Fruiting bodies tend to be more solitary than other oysters. The cap often has a pale margin.

Shifting Sands

Fencepost of the Week #97

And so it came to pass that the wise did plant their fenceposts in the soggy earth, and the posts did spring forth with all the fecund things of the damp ground - of the mosses and of the lichens and of the frogspawns, each in their season, and it was good. But the fool did plant his fenceposts in the dry sand and the posts they did remain bare - shamefull in their nakedness. And the sands did shift so that the fence would hold niether cattle nor flocks, but only the giraffe would be by it contain'd. And the people saw and did think him a ninny.

Barnacle Feet

Found this washed up on the beach - I think it is the cirri of a barnacle - the modified feet they use in filter feeding.

Like many other arthropods, adult barnacles continue to grow, sheding their skin periodically. So this is probably a bit of cast-off skin.

Dolomedes dondalei

Dolomedes dondalei

Dolomedes dondalei is a large spider adapted for hunting on water - mostly catching insects struggling at the surface. It sometimes catches small fish. They can move at speed over the surface - like pond-skaters - and dive at need. They usually hunt at night and this is the only one I saw out on the water. It is holding station on the surface of a mountain stream in full sun.

Lovely Mokoroa

The Mokoroa Stream runs through Goldie Bush in Auckland - a lovely place for a walk.

Look out for big, old eels in the stream, also some crayfish, though they are much smaller.

At the upper end of Goldie Bush are the Mokoroa Falls - great place for a picnic:

 The stream-side track is really rough: slippery when wet and with several river crossings that would be dangerous when the river is in spate. Fortunately, you can also admire the river and access the falls from the Goldie Bush Walkway which is a much safer and easier path.

Auckland Tree Weta

Hemideina thoracica - Auckland tree weta

More noctournal New Zealand crickets! These are auckland tree wetas, Hemideina thoracica. The one above is reversing out of a tree knothole where it has spent the day resting - you can quite often glimpse the rear end of a tree weta by looking in small holes in trees.

Hemideina thoracica - Auckland tree weta

The large holes on their forelegs are actually ears - most grasshoppers, crickets and katydids have similar hearing organs.

Hemideina thoracica - Auckland tree weta

The photo above is of a corpse - they wouldn't normally come out in the open during the day like this.

Green and Golden Bell Frog

Litoria aurea - Green and Golden Bell Frog

These are green and golden bell frogs - Litoria aurea - that were calling in a lagoon at night, and were attracted to my torch beam. They are not native to New Zealand, but introduced from Australia.

It's worth noting that this image is a composite of six separate photos - each of a single frog in a spotlight.

Tree Fern Understory

Lovely tree-fern understory in an exotic conifer plantation, by a mill pond full of green and golden bell frogs. Whakarewarewa Forest, Rotorua, NZ.

New Zealand Glow Worms

I found some New Zealand glow worms - Arachnocampa luminosa - last night. They’re a bit different from the ones I know from back in the UK. They produce chandeliers of sticky droplets to catch bugs in -> Wikipedia

Arachnocampa luminosa - New Zealand Glow Worm

Arachnocampa luminosa - New Zealand Glow Worm

Arachnocampa luminosa - New Zealand Glow Worm

Arachnocampa luminosa - New Zealand Glow Worm

Auckland Cave Weta

Gymnoplectron acanthocera - Auckland Cave Weta 

I photographed this Auckland Cave Weta - Gymnoplectron acanthocera - in the Waitakere Ranges when I was out on a rainy night looking for glow worms. Cave wetas mostly come out at night, though they are often seen during the day resting in nooks in garden sheds and other dark, quiet buildings.

Gymnoplectron acanthocera - Auckland Cave Weta 

This one is chowing down on a small bracket fungus.

Water-Eroded Concentrics

Fencepost of the Week #76

A beautifully weathered fencepost top from the Waitakere Ranges near Auckland, NZ.

Pycnoporus coccineus

Monday Mushroom #73

Pycnoporus is a genus of bright red bracket polypores with world-wide distribution, divided into species mostly by geographic region. This is Pycnoporus coccineus the native species from Australia and New Zealand.

It has an eye-catching bright red-orange colouration and is usually rather messy in form - sometimes looking more like a glob of putty than anything natural.

Southern Porcelain Fungus

Monday Mushroom #71

A beautiful, white mushroom photographed in New Zealand - reminiscent of the European species Oudemansiella mucida.

Oudemansiella australis surrounded by Auricularia cornea fruiting bodies. Everything below it has been dusted with white spores.

Oudemansiella australis

Whiteness and translucency are its defining features.

Oudemansiella australis

Birds Nest Fungus

Monday Mushroom #65

Crucibulum laeve - Birds Nest Fungus. Lots of stages of development from tiny pins to old, cracked cups.

This is Crucibulum laeve - one of the birds nest fungi. Their spores are grouped into white, rounded packets and are dispersed by raindrops splashing into the cup shaped body.

Crucibulum laeve - Birds Nest Fungus. Lid on right is disintegrating.

The fruiting bodies develop with a protective cover which shrivels and falls away on maturation.

Crucibulum laeve - Birds Nest Fungus

 Each cup is only 5-10mm in diamiter, and though distinctive, they are easily overlooked.

Crucibulum laeve - Birds Nest Fungus. A dense cluster of emptied cups.

New Zealand Mantis

I have mostly been in and around Auckland, and all the mantises I have seen here have been springbok mantises - Miomantis caffra. This is a mantis from South Africa that was only first recorded in New Zealand in the 1970's but is has made itself very much at home. Just occasionally both in gardens and out in the bush I have spotted an ootheca (mantis egg cluster) which doesn't quite look like the others.

Springbok mantis ootheca

New zealand mantis ootheca

The ootheca on the left is from a springbok mantis, the one on the right is from the new zealand mantis - Orthodera novaezealandiae. A careful poke about in the bushes around where the anomalous oothecas were deposited finally yielded my first sighting of the new zealand mantis.

All of these mantises are young, about 1.5cm in length. Full grown adults have wings and get up to 4cm in length.

The introduced springbok mantis and the natve new zealand mantis are the only two mantises living in New Zealand.

More Octopus Stinkhorns

Monday Mushroom #61

Just some more photos of the wonderful Octopus Stinkhorn - Clathrus archeri. I'm pleased to say it seems to be a very common, easy to spot mushroom in parks and gardens around Auckland. Its 'tentacles' are quite variable in form and colour.

Octopus Stinkhorn - Clathrus archeri

Octopus Stinkhorn - Clathrus archeri

Octopus Stinkhorn - Clathrus archeri

Octopus Stinkhorn - Clathrus archeri

Previous post with more photos is here: http://wild-e-eep.blogspot.co.nz/2014/05/octopus-stinkhorn.html