As I wrote about in last term's blog posts, I have wanted to visit Rangitoto for a little while - the last time I was there I was struck by how alien some of the small plants and rock formations along the shore were, and the oddness of the landscape. It feels very unfamiliar, almost extraterrestrial at times, and seems very unusual despite being so close to the city. When on the island I oscillate between the feeling of the city appearing much closer to the island than the island appears to be from the city and vice versa; it's local and proximal, but also worlds away, familiar from the outside but not up close.
On Friday, myself and a partner went to Rangitoto Island to collect some images and scans for future use. Thanks to their knowledge and background in biology/ecology, I was able to learn about the flora and fauna on the island, and found some really interesting plants while exploring the lava fields and caves (as well as spotting several saddleback birds/tīeke). I used my smartphone to take both photos (for both documentation and future photogrammetry) and LIDAR scans of some of the flora and rock formations, as well as some short videos of the coast-line. I'm unsure what to do with them at this stage, but my initial intent to was to go there in hopes of spotting some of the rare and endangered plants that are endemic to the island. I'm curious about the idea of generation and/or regeneration, and of strange strangers or oddities of the natural world (especially that which is in such close proximity to a heavily developed cityscape in this case).
Documenting, gathering
Below are some of the macro photos taken during the course of the day. Most focus on tiny plants and structures (most less than 5cm tall at best). The most curious plants I found are the kidney fern (Cardiomanes reniforme, or raurenga in Te Reo Maori) and winter greenhood orchid (Pterostylis alobula), the latter being endemic to the island; along with the Cladonia confusa lichen (the spiky, puff-ball like one below). I'm curious about trying to sculpt some of these forms - the lichens especially I think could make for interesting sculptures...
I also took several LIDAR scans of cave structures and plants - some more successful than others... I found the cave system scans the most interesting, and was surprised that even in low quality the camera was able to capture the length of the largest cave there (roughly 50m):
^ largest lava cave (50m long approx.)
^ scan of a shorter cave entrance in Blender, UV mapped texture on the left and wireframe object on the right
(will add the rest soon)
Thinking about ecology - "pioneers"
Pioneer species are "hardy species which are the first to colonize barren environments or previously biodiverse steady-state ecosystems that have been disrupted, such as by fire." On Rangitoto, these were mosses, lichens and other simple organisms which eventually broke down and created a humus (the dark organic matter in soil formed by the decomposition of plant and animal matter) for larger plants to establish themselves in. It's because of them
that anything was able to establish itself on the island's rough volcanic surface.
From Derek Grzelewski's article "The Microscopic World of Lichens":
Galloway suggested I visit Rangitoto Island in Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf, which is a classic study of primary succession — how life first colonises new land. It begins, of course, with lichens... The sombrero-shaped Rangitoto, the youngest, largest and least-modified cone in the Auckland Volcanic Field, came into being during a series of eruptions between 600 and 700 years ago. Despite appearing green from the distance, up-close it is still a harsh and raw-looking place, made up of sharp black basalt and lava stones called scoria. It is also exceptionally arid, as there are virtually no water catchments and lava fields are poor at retaining rainfall. In short, Rangitoto is an ideal habitat for lichens, so it’s little surprise that some 194 species—one of the country’s highest diversities of lichens—have been recorded here. Walking the trails of Rangitoto is like watching the history of plant settlement in fast-forward. Barely did the lava begin to cool than the first wind-born spores of lichens arrived, anchoring into the porous new world. For many years, centuries perhaps, the rocks would not have looked much different—just tiny splodges of paint-like growth, velvet or crust here and there; green, black, white or vividly yellow where the eye-catching Xanthoria ligulata had colonised. But spreading imperceptibly, growing, dying and decomposing, the lichens built the foundation for life, the first thin layer of soil. Into it, airborne dust and guano from seabirds added nutrients and depth and, with time, more complex lichens arrived, then mosses and ferns. Follow this ecological trajectory and, in the case of Rangitoto, a few hundred years later you have the largest stand of pohutukawa in the world, laced with ferns and orchids. All told, more than 200 species of trees and flowers stand in a place that was once barren and sterile rock. And all thanks to the lowly lichen, rustici pauperrimi—the poor little peasants of nature—as Linnaeus called them in his 1753 book Species Plantarum. They not only become soil and humus, they actively create it. Their hair-like rhizines, despite their tiny size, can exert enormous pressure on the rock to which they anchor, and they don’t just grow over rocks, they grow into them as well. In some species the rhizines can penetrate the rock to a depth of 6–8 mm, and the oxalic acid within them reacts with most metals and minerals until it is impossible to tell where the rock ends and the lichen begins. In this way lichens stabilise the soil on which they grow, binding pebbles and organic matter, preventing erosion by wind and water. Just about the only place where lichens do not grow well is on scree slopes which lack stability.
Also, some very cool recent discoveries re. lichen!
Loose thoughts:
I am thinking on the idea of regeneration... on how this is the second island my practice has drawn me to in one way or another that is undergoing a process of re-generation, an act of hindsight to counter the damage done under Colonialism... there's a strange feeling about it, the idea of this ancient moonrock-like place, a place where generations of moss, lichen and detritus had to build just in order for anything to grow substantially on its surface, now being put through a sort of artificial beginning. Starting over in a sense, but also not... we are in the process of rediscovering things in one way or another; there's a feeling of conservation as well as one of artificiality...
The lava caves are strange spaces to me and are really interesting to be in. I love the spaces - knowing that they were formed by flowing molten rock and are passageways of one kind or another makes them feel very otherworldly when standing in them or walking through them. In reading up on them I've seen them mentioned as being used as crypts in pre-colonial time (although I haven't found anything specific to confirm this) and as rubbish dumps by settlers in the early 1900s as Auckland in particular was being developed; thinking about them in terms of preservation, sites of liminality, sites of disposal, sites of reverence, sites that are site for ecologies themselves... lots of thoughts come up.
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