After our trip to Ulva Island, we headed up the west coast of New Zealand until we ran out of road. Then we started walking.
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| Starting the Heaphy, at Kohaihai beach. |
The route we'd chosen was the Heaphy Track: one of New Zealand's Great Walks. Over the course of the next four days, this would take us from the seemingly endless beaches of the West Coast, through palm forests, over scrubby peaks, across tussocky downs and back down through the beech forests towards Golden Bay.
We were there in summer – not a great season for fungi. But there were still a few things to interest a holidaying amateur mycologist.
Day 1: Kohaihai to Heaphy Hut
We set off late, as we'd been exploring the Oparara Basin in the morning. It felt like we had the place to ourselves.
Thick palm forests hugged the long white beaches.
These are Nīkau Rhopalostylis sapida – New Zealand's native palm tree. And very nice palm trees they are too.
We were there at the right time to see their mauve flowers burst out from the base of the lowest branch. Over the course of the next year, while the next couple of branches wither and drop off, the Nīkau will fruit and produce a crop of bright red berries.
The palm forests looked quite messy to me – with these huge fronds littering the floor.
But I noticed these guys are busy tidying up...
Many of the fronds I looked at were covered in these tiny mushrooms, with horsehair-like stems and thin brown caps. They reminded me of the Marasmius species I am familiar with at home and, sure enough, a dessicated specimen revived quickly in a drop of water, revealing widely spaced gills.
I found a 'Checklist of fungi on nikau palm (Rhopalostylis sapida and R. baueri var. cheesemanii), in New Zealand' (2004) published online. They list a species – Marasmius rhopalostylidis – which they considered may be confined to nikau. An image on the hiddenforest.co.nz website does look quite like what I've found, albeit fresher and better photographed. A description on the landcareresearch.co.nz website notes that M. rhopalostylidis is "minutely pruinose overall" which gives it a slightly frosted texture, when viewed with a hand lens; this is not a feature which I observed. I assume microscopy would be required to confirm an ID on this one. So I'll leave it there.
We did come across some other bits of woody debris lying around in the palm forest, and some of these were hosting fungi.
I think this must be a Pleurotus species, but that's as far as I've got.
This one looked remarkably like Jelly Ear Auricularia auricula-judae which I see a lot in Sussex, except a bit grey-er.
When I shared this observation through iNaturalist, two mycologists suggested an ID of Auricularia cornea.
"Ah hah!" I thought. New Zealand must have different species of Auriculariales,
compared to what we have in the UK... Except when you look on
the landcareresearch.co.nz website, A. auricula-judae is listed as a synonym for A. cornea. Perhaps this is one of those situations where our universal system of naming is not so universal after all? Anyway, I reckon I saw this species a few times over the course of our trip to New Zealand. They were definitely less brown and more grey than the ones I see at home. Which is interesting, right?
Eventually our journey up the west coast came to an end. Where the Heaphy River meets the sea, just before that headland, we found the Heaphy Hut and our beds for the night.
We got there just in time for dinner – with a view up river to where the Heaphy Track would lead us the next day.
Day 2: Heaphy Hut to James Mackay Hut
Turns out people get up REALLY EARLY in tramping huts, and make a lot of noise. So we hit the track bright and early the next day. The tramp up river didn't turn up much in the way of fungi.
But we did see a Sacred Kingfisher Todiramphus sanctus, which was nice.
We left the nikau palms behind us, and tramped on through thick forest.
Past Lewis Hut, the track begins its slow climb up to the Downs. The bush here was home to some cracking mushrooms.
Folk over on iNaturalist have identified this one as Amanita pareparina. The amanitaceae.org website notes that this species was "originally described from New Zealand, associated with Southern Beech (Nothofagus). It is known from the southern part of the North Island and the Northern part of the South Island." What a beauty!
This brown mushroom also had a lot going on, with that sulcate margin and patterning on the stem. I was grateful to the folk on iNaturalist for a suggested ID: Amanita pekeoides. According to the amanitaceae.org website this species is only known from New Zealand.
I particularly liked the dark margin to the gills, and that shadowy ring around the top of the stem where the free gills meet the cap. Very smart.
This bracket fungus has so far evaded identification, but it's a great looking thing.
Check out those pores!
I took this thing for an earthball, but was intrigued by the blue staining. I think it's probably Rossbeevera (= Chamonixia) pachydermis, another species which is restricted to New Zealand.
As the track gains elevation, the thick ferny bush gives way to sunnier woodland.
I can't identify Russulas at home, so it won't surprise you to hear I don't know what species this is, growing at the side of the track. But it was a looker, with that rose-pink stem.
Up on Mackay Downs, the bush and woodland gives way to sweetly-scented Manuka Leptospermum scrub.
We found a nice place to sit and watch the sun go down, and I noticed these little things on a dead twig beside me: bird's nest fungi. My best guess would be one of the Nidula species.
I tried to find some with the 'eggs' (peridioles) still in them, until I got distracted by the sunset.
Day 3: James Mackay Hut to Gouland Downs
We had a reason to be up on these Downs. We were looking for Takahē Porphyrio hochstetteri, which had recently been reintroduced up there, as part of the Department of Conservation Takahē Recovery Programme.
We scanned every patch of promising-looking Takahē habitat, for signs of these birds...
We found plenty of signs of Takahē. But no big blue birds.
These signs got me thinking about the communities of organisms one finds associated with individual species, when you start looking: parasites and such like. Are there fimicolous fungi associated with Takahē, I wonder? [Answer, yes: I see someone's done a science on this.]
On a bank, where the track cut through the scrub, I did see some snazzy orange mushrooms.
I noticed they seemed to be growing in association with green algae.
The decurrent gills reminded me of a Lichenomphalia species I found at Graffham Common once.
Responses on iNaturalist are in agreement with this specimen being from the genus Lichenomphalia. New Zealand based mycologist, Jerry Cooper, has written a note on the New Zealand Lichenomphalia, here. Sounds like there's quite a bit of work to do on them!
After the scrublands, the path eventually drops down to the flatlands of Gouland Downs.
Still we scanned the tussock grass for Takahē. Someone said they'd seen one by the river. But we saw none.
With the sun at our backs, sun orchids (Thelymitra sp.) turned to greet us as we made our way to Gouland Downs Hut.
The path takes you through a small beech (Nothofagus) forest...
... before arriving at the hut.
Here, eating the lush grass by the hut, we finally found our Takahē. What a bird!
We'd had a relatively easy day walking, which left plenty of time for fossicking about in the 'enchanted forest', as the brochure calls it.
The beech forest sits over a limestone outcrop, and you can take your torch and have a poke around. in the various caves underneath. Didn't find any cave fungi.
Did see this MASSIVE WORM popping up out of the ground. Which was the first time in my life I've ever seen a worm poke it's head up out of the ground... and I had quite the shock when it JUST KEPT COMING.
In the leaf litter, I spotted this rather gorgeous ascomycete. Haven't been able to narrow down an ID on this one, unfortunately.
At the base of a beech tree, I also saw some weird black golf ball shaped things. And I'm gutted I didn't get a picture, because it's since occurred to me that what I was looking at was this species:
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| Beech Strawberry Cyttaria gunnii. Image via archive.org. |
At the edge of the enchanted forest, a waterfall tumbles out of a large cave. Which made a nice spot to sit and watch the Welcome Swallows Hirundo neoxena fly by.
On the damp rock by the waterfall, I spotted this globular brown alga, shining in the evening sun...
At least I think it's an alga.
Day 4: Gouland Downs to Brown Hut
It was raining as we packed our bags for our final day's tramping. But by the time we turned to take a last look at Gouland Downs, the rain had given way to a wet mist. We passed more golden yellow Lichenomphalia mushrooms, glistening at the side of the track.
After the path had taken us up and over Perry Saddle, we found ourselves again on the forested flanks of the Downs.
Yup, it's a bracket!
I thought it might be a Phellinus species, with those cinnamon-brown pores. But I think there are other genera in the Hymenochaetaceae which have brown pores.
As we walked further on, the forest opened out, and a few piles of cut timber lay next to the path – home to these bright orange bracket fungi, with orange pores. Reckon these are Orange Bracket Pycnoporus coccineus: an Australasian species.
As we got down into the beech forest, I was mystified by these black trees which had the sweet smell of fermenting sugar and hummed with the sound of wasps.
The smell reminded me of that time some giant aphids took up residence on a willow tree at Woods Mill. I imagined the black coating must be some kind of sooty mould. But I could see no aphids.
I found out later that this is a natural phenomenon in New Zealand's southern beech forests, caused by scale insects which live in the bark and drip honeydew from their long anal tubes (more here). But the wasps I could hear are not part of the natural order of things here and their voracious habits are, sadly, causing major problems in New Zealand's unique ecosystems.
And that gets us just about back to the car park at Brown Hut where – thanks to Heaphy Track Help – our car was waiting for us.
Wonder if I'll ever get to go back and do this again in Autumn, with a collecting box...
For the record
Fungus observations have been added to iNaturalist.
