Thursday, October 28, 2010

The colours of new growth

The new growth of titoki is bronze, and the leaves tender. To possoms they must be as delectable as new season's asparagus. Before possoms were controlled on the Waitakere West Coast, they would devour the whole spring growth in one night, and the titoki remained stunted for years. Now it's free to grow as it likes.
Pohutukawa shoots are almost lemon-yellow when caught by the light. They too used to be chomped off by the possoms, but now they are flourishing and in summer will blossom profusely.
Meanwhile, the new shoots of the little kiokio ferns are flaring like flames along the pathways. They are quite hard and scratchy, not possom-fare at all. I think of them as solar lights, the sun converted to red fire amongst the green.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Beautiful shots of spring native plants Juliet. I love the thought of ferns being solar lights. Very apt.

Marilyn & Jeff said...

This is lovely, wonderful to hear that the trees aren't being destroyed by the possums any more. I love the redness of the new fern shoots too, we have them on our bush block down south.

Anonymous said...

Such wonderful photos of your spring! Your word images are as wonderful as well. Happy springtime.