Help save one of Hobsonville Point’s coastal plants, Epilobium hirtigerum.

Also known as the 'Hobsonville kakapo’, this plant is so threatened that it has a dedicated team
working to protect it, including collecting thousands of seeds.

This plant has carved out a home at several sites in Hobsonville Point, and is also known as a hairy willow herb. It has tiny white flowers, seed pods packed with 100 fluffy seeds ready for dispersal and takes a liking to roadsides. 

The aim is to ‘invite’ this plant into our neighbourhood and to have enough plants and seedlings so it is no longer threatened. We do it well on land set aside on parks and islands. Can we also do it well within our community landscape and backyards? Do you have a corner, a space in mind? 

If you live in or around Hobsonville Point and would like to be involved in saving Epilobium please let us know and get involved.

About Epilobium hirtigerum:

• Epilobium hirtigerum is a quirky, native, non-woody plant that was ‘nationally critically threatened’. This is one step below extinct – the same status as the kakapo.  
• Unlike kakapo and kiwi who need us to keep our distance, this highly threatened plant benefits from our activities – if we don’t weed it out.
• Interestingly, it grows in disturbed situations where the ground surface is exposed, such as wetland or stream bank edges, road side banks or spare corners where people have created disturbance and left the space open.  
• Semi-annual, germinating and growing for one to three years.
• Seeds are distributed by the wind to find a bare patch of soil to grow.

Get in touch to help or email Neil at [email protected].