Wandering onto the beach at Sumner from the carpark is done through the sand dunes and the masses of ice plant that populate in great swathes...
...reminders of many happy sandy holidays at the beach at Orewa, North of Auckland, as a child, enjoying the 'beach flowers', as I remember them...
...a rather prolific plant and far too efficient at the task it was introduced to do in some countries, the ice plant colonises sand dunes very quickly, from the hundreds of seeds per 'figgy' fruit or rooting from a stem strike...
...growing at the rate of up to 1m per year from one individual stem segment and one ice plant can occupy up to 50m alone...
...here in New Zealand it is now on the National Pest Plant Accord due to its invasive nature, covering huge areas in a monoculture, lowering biodiversity and - it was discovered that it actually contributed to faster dune erosion in some instances of heavy rain - the ice plant flesh holds so much water that it is really heavy, whilst not very deeply rooted and in heavy rain can cause large amounts of slippage, due to the large areas it covers...
...ice plant arrived here from South Africa in 1883 as an ornamental plant and
goes by other names such as 'pig face', 'Hottentot fig' and 'Sour Fig'.
The botanical name comes from the Greek, karpos for 'fruit' and brotus
for 'edible'. Indeed in some countries a very sour jam is made from the
fleshy fruits...
