Rangitoto is a National reserve for Plant life
Rangitoto's lava rock seems an inhospitable environment for plant life, yet the island hosts over 200 species of native trees and flowering plants, more than 40 kinds of fern and several species of orchid. Many plants form unusual hybrids or adopt strange behaviours because of the unusual conditions.
The crimson-flowered pohutukawa is Rangitoto's dominant tree. Once common along New Zealand coastlines, pohutukawa forests have been largely reduced to lone trees and Rangitoto has the country's largest remaining pohutukawa forest.
The Department has successfully completed a major project to eradicate possums and wallabies which were destroying the island's pohutukawa. Now a major weed eradication programme is underway on the island.
Astelia fruit, Rangitito Island
As they grow the pohutukawa provide shelter and shade for other species like mingimingi, koromiko and puka. Many ephpytes like astelia and Kirk's daisy, which normally clamber over the high branches of the trees, grow from the ground on Rangitoto.
The island is not rich in landbirds, probably because of the comparatively recent vegetation growth, but shores are well frequented by a variety of seabirds and there are two thriving nesting colonies of black backed gulls, one near Rangitoto Wharf and the other near the Beacon. Fantails, grey warblers, silvereyes and moreporks are some of the birds which inhabit the Rangitoto forest.
Introduced possums and brush-tailed rock wallabies which by the 1980s were threatening to destroy the pohutukawa forest, have now been moved.
Rangitoto's lava rock seems an inhospitable environment for plant life, yet the island hosts over 200 species of native trees and flowering plants, more than 40 kinds of fern and several species of orchid. Many plants form unusual hybrids or adopt strange behaviours because of the unusual conditions.
The crimson-flowered pohutukawa is Rangitoto's dominant tree. Once common along New Zealand coastlines, pohutukawa forests have been largely reduced to lone trees and Rangitoto has the country's largest remaining pohutukawa forest.
The Department has successfully completed a major project to eradicate possums and wallabies which were destroying the island's pohutukawa. Now a major weed eradication programme is underway on the island.
Astelia fruit, Rangitito Island
As they grow the pohutukawa provide shelter and shade for other species like mingimingi, koromiko and puka. Many ephpytes like astelia and Kirk's daisy, which normally clamber over the high branches of the trees, grow from the ground on Rangitoto.
The island is not rich in landbirds, probably because of the comparatively recent vegetation growth, but shores are well frequented by a variety of seabirds and there are two thriving nesting colonies of black backed gulls, one near Rangitoto Wharf and the other near the Beacon. Fantails, grey warblers, silvereyes and moreporks are some of the birds which inhabit the Rangitoto forest.
Introduced possums and brush-tailed rock wallabies which by the 1980s were threatening to destroy the pohutukawa forest, have now been moved.
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