Something exciting is quietly happening along the edges of the Waimea Inlet. Volunteers from Battle for the Banded Rail are carefully tending protected beds of coastal peppercress, hoping the plants will self-seed and propagate naturally. As one of Aotearoa’s rarest plants, this is a crucial step in saving it from our history books.
Closely related to Cook’s scurvy grass, coastal peppercress is a low-growing, fleshy-leaved herb belonging to the brassica family and has a peppery taste. Back in the 1700’s the herb was eaten by Captain Cook’s crew to help prevent scurvy, thanks to its high vitamin C content. But by the mid-20th century, coastal peppercress was so rare that botanists struggled to find living plants in the wild.
Once commonly found from Karamea to the Marlborough Sounds, by 1991 only 22 plants were known to exist in the wild. A glimmer of hope was reignited by the discovery of a small population in Abel Tasman National Park, but tragically feral pigs destroyed these plants soon after. Now, it teeters on the brink of extinction with its natural habitat shrinking to just a handful of sites in Tasman.
Faced with survival threats from feral pigs, rabbits and disease, the only hope for this special plant is careful human propagation. Department of Conservation staff in Tasman are having a small amount of success sowing seeds directly into nutrient-rich seabird colonies – where it likes to grow naturally, and now thanks to the joint efforts of Battle for the Banded Rail volunteers coastal peppercress has another hopeful chance.
Saving this unassuming taonga will help protect biodiversity and the intricate web of life that makes our local environment and cultural history unique. So next time you’re passing by the Waimea Inlet, take a moment to ponder the quiet power of community conservation and the dedicated mahi happening to save this precious plant.
