Today’s photo is of a rare white variant of the kākābeak/ngutukākā flower which once grew at the Tiniroto cliffs near Wairoa but has not been seen in the wild since the 1950s.
Last week around 100 of these plants, grown from seeds by Crown Research Institute Scion, were handed over to East Coast iwi Ngāti Kohatu and Ngāti Hinehika to be planted back on their ancestral lands.
Scion had been working together with DOC, Landcare Research and the Ngutukākā Recovery Group for four years to propagate the white kākābeak seeds and seedlings in its nurseries.
More information is available on the DOC website.
Love reading/seeing when nature is returned back to nature. Great story and will be wonderful to see in the wild again.