A (literally) ground-breaking occasion - the first plants are now in the ground for the Motuihe Trust’s Threatened Plant Project! A hardy group of volunteers have planted the first 165 plants; a mix of kākābeak (Clianthus puniceus), koheriki (Scandia rosifolia) and tauhinu (Ozothamnus leptophyllus). These species face a range of threats, including browsing from pest animals, competition from weeds and loss of habitat.

The Motuihe Trust has been growing kākābeak on the island for more than 10 years, with increasing success, particularly with nursery cultivation. You may have seen the plants in buckets in the nursery before and wondered what they are. This novel planting arrangement has come about through trial and error as the perfect solution for cultivating kākābeak with the drainage that they require. The nursery plants are currently in full bloom and are well worth a visit if you are on the island. There are two species of kākābeak, both endemic to Aotearoa / New Zealand. The Trust grow the northern species – Clianthus puniceus, which is now extinct in the wild, arguably making it rarer than a kakapo.

Kākābeak are going to be planted in a range of sites across Motuihe in the coming years, in a mix of ‘orchard’ and ‘wild’ sites. Orchard sites will serve as a seed source and the wild areas will be left to grow naturally, and hopefully begin to produce seedlings to naturally colonise the area. While kākābeak are quite straight forward to cultivate, they struggle to produce seedlings in the wild. This is the challenge that we hope to overcome with our project!

Alongside kākābeak, the Trust is extending our threatened plant conservation work to reintroduce a range of native plant species that once would have grown on inner gulf islands and will form part of the natural plant communities that kākābeak once would have grown within. Planting out koheriki and tauhinu is just the beginning of what we hope to achieve towards threatened plant conservation on Motuihe.

If you would like to be involved, or find out more about this project, we would love to hear from you! Email operations@motuihe.org.nz to get in touch.