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Plant Found on Island Gordon Ell Fifty plants of the rare Kermadec koromiko have been found in the wild shortly after the death of the single shrub which brought the species back from extinction in 1983. The Kermadec koromiko Hebe breviracemosa grows only on Raoul Island, in the Kermadec Islands Nature Reserve, some 1200 kms northeast of New Zealand. (See Forest& Bird, November 1997.) For most of this century it was thought to be extinct, wiped out by goats introduced to the islands in the nineteenth century. The goats were removed from the island in 1984 not long after the sole surviving koromiko was discovered. The plant is a small shrub growing up to |
two
metres in height, with small white to pale lilacflowers arranged in a short cluster.The search for more shrubs has till now proved unsuccessful, partly because of the volcanic nature of the island which is fragile and steep.The newly discovered plants were found in an area accessible only with climbing ropes.The programme to save the Kermadec koromiko began with the 1983 plant. Cuttings were taken and seeds gathered for reintroduction to the wild. These cultivated plants are raised in a nursery on Raoul Island. To date only one other plant has grown naturally in the wild; possibly due to rats eating seeds or seedlings, and the choking proliferation of weeds after the removal of goats.The newly found wild plants will now provide more genetic diversity to the cultivated stock. (from "Forest & Bird" magazine, August 1998.) |
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