Good morning, and happy New Yearâ¨
I hope you have had a good holiday season. Ours was busy, and I am easing back into the routine of daily life. Summer has arrived, with temperatures up to 30â (86â) this week - so much for it being cold in the south!
I have been to-ing and fro-ing about what I should write about to kick this year off. We have had an abundance of wildlife in our garden: dragonflies, damselflies, mayflies, moths, butterflies, ladybirds, bees, and native wasps (and just the other day I found a colony of leaf-veined slugs in the front garden).
And then I visited Matakaea/Shag Point and saw dozens of pepe para riki (copper butterflies, Lycaena genus) in the grass & flowers that blanket the reserve. It didnât take me long to realise the butterflies were breeding at this site, after seeing a congregation around a sprawling pĹhuehue (muehlenbeckia) bush, which is their host plant1. I spent a wonderful morning observing and photographing them. One even flew down and landed about a handâs width in front of me.
But I have already written about copper butterflies, and also pĹhuehue, so today I am writing about another bit of wild life I saw at Matakaea: Hebe elliptica.
You can read more about hebes in one of my early Dwindle River Garden newsletters, but H. elliptica is one of two that is also found in South America (the other is H. salicifolia)2. H. elliptica is native to the Antipodean Islands, Argentina, Chile, the Falkland Islands, and New Zealand, and has also been naturalised in Tasmania.34
H. elliptica is one of the hebes traditionally used in rongoÄ (MÄori medicine) to treat diarrhoea and other gastrointestinal issues. As well as having dried leaves sent to New Zealand soldiers to treat dysentry during World War II, in the late 1800s patients at Christchurch Hospital were given fresh leaves to eat as a remedy for diarrhoea.5
The plant itself has small leaves creating a dense, good-looking shrub that grows to about two metres. It has tiny mauve-white flowers that form clusters at the tip of leaf stems, and the older branches become a beautiful burnt red colour. It grows in the South Island, and the lower half of the North Island.6
Like other plants growing in coastal conditions, H. elliptica is resilient in the face of erosion, and a battering of salt-laden winds. I saw both bees and butterflies feeding on the flowers, so I can vouch for it as an excellent plant for pollinators (if you live south of New Plymouth). There are also cultivars of H. elliptica available if you want something different, but do your research first as cultivars donât necessarily bring in the wildlife.7
One thing I love about visiting reserves in my region is finding out whatâs possible in my home garden. There were many plants at Matakaea that are also in my backyard: yarrow, hebe, catsears, pĹhuehue, and flowering grass. I can now add Hebe elliptica to my plant wishlist, and also the native piripiri (Acaena anserinifolia) which the butterflies seemed to like just as much as their host plant.
I am looking forward to spending more time exploring our local natural spaces, taking advantage of the warm summer season, searching for new plants I can source to make my garden more of a wildlife haven.
Have fun exploring your regionâs wild spaces,
Zenobiađ
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https://www.nzbutterflies.org.nz/species-info/l-salustius/
http://www.hebesoc.org/hebes_introduction/hebes_introduction.htm
https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:811951-1 (there is also one species, H. rapensis, that is not found in New Zealand at all)
https://www.nzpcn.org.nz/flora/species/veronica-elliptica/k
Tipa, R. (2018). Treasures of TÄne. Huia Publishers.
https://www.nzpcn.org.nz/flora/species/veronica-elliptica/
https://www.xerces.org/blog/cultivar-conundrum