Source: Radio New Zealand
The critically endangered forget-me-not Myosotis petiolata is endemic to Hawke’s Bay. Supplied
A critically endangered forget-me-not is being saved from the brink of extinction by a group of conservationists in Hawke’s Bay.
Myosotis petiolata is one of the most endangered plants in the country. In 2019 just one of the beautiful flowering plants was found clinging on to life in a limestone crevice in the Te Waka range, inland from Napier.
Since then, the Department of Conservation, along with local iwi, plant nurseries, councils, forestry companies and Pan Pac, have been working hard on a propagation programme and there are now 232 cultivated plants in the region.
Department of Conservation biodiversity ranger Michael McCandless said the plant was endemic to Hawke’s Bay.
“It’s a little taonga, it’s really really incredibly rare so if we don’t actively partake in the recovery of it then it will go extinct,” he said.
McCandless said the species was susceptible to fungal diseases, so he could not confidently say the forget-me-not was out of the woods.
“We’re beginning to pull back right from the very edge of the precipice, but we’re definitely not safe yet.
“There are no guarantees in this game … but we are definitely moving in the right direction,” he said.
The critically endangered forget-me-not Myosotis petiolata is being saved from the brink of extinction by a group of Hawke’s Bay conservationists. Supplied
Marie Taylor from Plant Hawke’s Bay is working alongside Michael McCandless to save the species, and her team has been growing hundreds of the plants from cuttings in her nursery.
“We thought we were pretty clever, then they started to flower in the nursery which was really fabulous because they’re really young plants.
“We’re experimenting where the best places to plant them are, as we want to really stabilise the population and get it thriving,” she said.
Marie and Michael’s dream is to re-establish the plant in a number of different sites among the limestone rocks where the forget-me-not was found.
“They’re really lovely plants, it’s so neat to be working with something so special, it’s such a privilege.
“They didn’t like the frost this winter – so we thought we’d killed them by mistake, but they all came back,” she laughed.
McCandless would love to see myosotis petiolata “growing like a weed” one day.
“It’s currently ‘nationally critical’, it’d be nice to see it getting taken down a rung in the threatened plant classification.
“That’s a long goal but if we manage to put enough cultivated plants out there, and build the project as robustly as we can… it’s entirely achievable to see the species spread right across its known historical habitat,” McCandless said.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
