Category: Plants

Thelymitra longifolia

This is the commonest sun orchid in the country, at least until the variable complex currently under one name gets split into several species. It is part of a sparse orchid flora of four species, all terrestrial, on Puangiangi and is quite plentiful there in open country and on disturbed ground trackside.

Botanists Chris Horne and Barbara Mitcalfe listed only the one Thelymitra, of a few that might have been expected there, and it is a cheerful sight on a sunny day in Spring and Summer.

(Part of an ongoing effort to photograph all the vascular plants on the island. Each species will get a page when I get enough reasonable photos.)

Linum monogynum

Yes, it is a flax. Evidently New Zealand is the only place where our Phormium species, wharariki and harakeke, are referred to as flaxes. Linum monogynum is closely related to the northern hemisphere linen flax, whose spun fibres are used to make linen and whose derived oil is linseed oil.

Linum is a subshrub of open spaces and can colonise the rank pasture a bit too. It can cope with the frequent salty gales.

(Part of an ongoing effort to photograph all the vascular plants on the island. Each species will get a page when I get enough reasonable photos.)