I am very bad with grasses, but great to see someone into them. I have helped with some Thar Monitoring in Mt Cook, looking at snow tussock browse, and a different one in the Paparoa Range when doing giant weta research.
Probably Chionochloa rubra? Yes, I love the sight of vast open spaces filled with tussock grasses. Was just in Quito, Ecuador, and the volcanic mountains around the city at 4000 m had such a terrain (different species than in NZ obviously).
But the answer to that (and also why poach) is that there are customers out there.
I remember a horror story during COVID lockdown, when the Netherlands could not sell potted plants and dumped the whole lot. Plastic pots, soil and plants.
That’s just an average day in the US. What doesn’t sell in time gets thrown in the dumpster. Seasonal decorations, plants, groceries… brand new stuff still in the packaging just sent to the landfill to make room for the next season’s batch of crap.
My Cape Town supermarket – Woolworths (equivalent to Marks and Spencer in UK) passes on food which is past its sell by date, but still fit to eat – to various charities. So it does get eaten, and not dumped.
Hopefully this isnt hijacking the thread too much.
"Variable-area permanently marked plots were established in five catchments
where regular censuses of thar have been (or will be) conducted. The plots
were sited in areas with palatable species of snow tussock, i.e., Chionochloa
flavescens, C. pallens, and C. rigida. Plot areas were large enough to include at
least 20 adult tussocks."
A plot under Aoraki.
And this is the terain for the Paparoa Weta
Generally it seems around Chionochloa australis fringes is best, but thats till being figured out.
Sorry, last post, need to reciprocate:
Gorgeous pics! Love the mountainous background. No wonder many films such as LOTR are done in that country. Here’s pics of various Tussock spp above Quito, with a pic showing the city in the background. City is at 2900 m, this was taken around 4000 m give or take a couple hundred. Took a cable car from the city, then continued hiking up.
The status can also sometimes be left blank because it’s ambiguous - this is particularly true with archaeophytes. Artemisia vulgaris in the UK has historically been considered a native species but recently doubts have been cast on this - it’s often found near human disturbance, it got planted a lot in the medieval period, and fossil evidence for it is lacking. Putting a status on it is tricky, so maybe best leave it without one.
Likewise, Ballota nigra - it’s usually considered an introduction in the UK, but it’s been here since at least the Iron Age. That’s also before you get to more precise regions - like Beech in Scotland, which, depending on who you ask, is either an introduced species, or “a natural colonist from England that, even if it was introduced, would have gotten there on it’s own anyway”.
Not just that -
Why do people that love nature want to have native plants in their garden? because they bring the insects, the birds, the spiders, etc, restoring the environment.
Why do gardeners want exotic plants in their garden, the more toxic the better? Because they DON’T bring the insects, the birds and the spiders. A toxic plant that nothing eats from is way easier to take care of and stays free from bird poop, “pest” bugs and unsightly spiders.