Making Tracks with Scroggin
One of the stated objectives of the Wanganui Tramping Club is to protect and encourage the native flora and a way to do this is to combat invasive weeds.
Since 1965, one weekend a year has been spent eradicating pinus contorta in Tongariro National Park. In recent years, club members have supplied labour to the Conservation Department (DoC) to pull flowering pink ragwort plants growing in the Whitiau Scientific Reserve, near the mouth of the Whangaehu River.
Pink ragwort (Senecio glastifolius), also known as Holly-leafed senecio, is from South Africa. It may look pretty with its bright pink, purple, or mauve, daisy-like flowers with yellow centres, but its seeds spread rapidly in the wind and has colonised large areas of State Highway 3 roadside, the Whanganui coast and beyond.
A team of 15 trampers and one DOC ranger spent a day pulling pink ragwort at Whitiau earlier this month.
