The New Zealand Plant Conservation Network

Thanks John,
A bumper harvest of kahikatea there. Earlier today I had a trip down memory lane courtesy of Google Earth as I remembered there were a few other reserves besides A'Deanes that had flat land and outstanding podocarps. Not far for a pigeon is the big reserve at Maraetotara but it's quite a haul by road. Ngapaeruru just east of Dannevirke is small but the track descends through the canopy which is novel and Ball's Clearing further north at Puketitiri is so dense that even as an adult I would feel relief at seeing light at the edge. Last time I was at Elsthorpe we were cutting and painting hawthorn, fencing the other stand across the road and the back of the original reserve was still grazed by cattle to "keep the blackberry down".
If you go here you will find two references to Elsthorpe http://www.nzpcn.org.nz/publication_search.aspx?scfStart_Results=100&scfSubmit=1&;

Comment Part II
Just to finish off: Geoff's transcribed notes are interesting and a few years after I worked in it and Tony Druces list probably covers the wider area but includes M. colensoi and M. perforata and just for clarity no Griselinia.
Your grandmother by the way was a champion to keep this from being cleared.

Mum thinks it was put aside pre WW1, That when logging really took off out there...
Now we get to drive out to the beach and observe the latest slipping of up to 30% on some of the farms...

Yes, I noticed the state of the hills between Kairakau and Waimarama. Mohi Bush was the other reserve. It sounds like you'll be back at Elsthorpe, if so and you still want to pin it down, it should be easy enough to work out what the vine is from fallen leaves as Mike suggests. M. colensoi and M. perforata are very distinct and the photos on NZPCN are quite clear.

You could try NVS as a source of diameter data - they used to measure lianes and may provide some insight.

I raised G. littoralis on the basis of that species having a fluted trunk similar to that in the photo, but it is more likely to be a Metrosideros given the reddish colour.

Peter - that's my point - no-one seems to have taken much notice of the trunk size of vines in the literature. I think it is of interest as they can reach considerable size in some instances. The NVS might be worth querying or the Epiphyte Network http://www.nzepiphytenetwork.org/blog.html might want to chase up.

Yep - have used them to descend bluffs in the Te Rake Range of Wakaremoana - my field notes after that event are so shaky that they are almost undecipherable!

Last word from my old mum:
The description you gave of metersideous Colensoi, answered exactly as it mentions the limestone country and Colenso who was through the Kairakau Hapu on his exploration would have seen that clearly. I believe those reserves of bush at Elsthorpe to be the original so there would have been time for the vine to fatten up.
Unless the leaf shape is all wrong for my theory.
Colenso was friends of Gt Grandad E Bibby and we have his gift of a prayerbook or maori Bible somewhere in the archives. Some of the actual plant specimens he made are in the onga museaum as well as letters.
Your great gran. MG Bibby, and another lady petitoned the MP about saving the Elsthorpe bush from the saw mills. That is why it is still intact today.

Last word from my old mum:
The description you gave of metersideous Colensoi, answered exactly as it mentions the limestone country and Colenso who was through the Kairakau Hapu on his exploration would have seen that clearly. I believe those reserves of bush at Elsthorpe to be the original so there would have been time for the vine to fatten up.
Unless the leaf shape is all wrong for my theory.
Colenso was friends of Gt Grandad E Bibby and we have his gift of a prayerbook or maori Bible somewhere in the archives. Some of the actual plant specimens he made are in the onga museaum as well as letters.
Your great gran. MG Bibby, and another lady petitoned the MP about saving the Elsthorpe bush from the saw mills. That is why it is still intact today.

Hi John, yeah Colenso spent a lot of time in that area and had good links with local Maori as he was married? to a local Maori woman (much to the chagrin of the church). His relationship with Maori were instrumental in guiding him over the Kaweka and through the Urewera. He was obviously a tough bugger if you read behind the lines of his papers - things like stuffing wet plant samples in his shirt to protect them during really bad weather. I didn't realise the museum had some of his specimens. I'll have a look when I'm up that way later in the year.

Onga Onga museum is only open Sunday afternoons or by apt.