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New Zealand Plant Conservation Network president Jesse Bythell says the Favourite Native Plant of the Year competition is a fun way to celebrate and shine a spotlight on Aotearoa’s native flora.
Voting is open for another competition celebrating New Zealand’s natural world, but shh… don’t tell John Oliver.
While it might not garner the same attention, the New Zealand Plant Conservation Network’s Favourite Native Plant of the Year competition generates a fair amount of smack talk and memes from flora enthusiasts.
President Jesse Bythell said the competition was a “cheesy bit of fun” and a lively way to celebrate New Zealand’s unique natives.
“It encourages telling good stories and highlights plants that are threatened.”
Those stories can be quite magical.
For some voters, its memories of their “first meeting” with a plant, for others it’s the childhood nostalgia a plant evokes, or even fierce and dedicated efforts to save plants that only live in tiny parts of New Zealand from extinction.
“It’s a love story,” Bythell said.
Her own favourite changes from year to year, depending on what the conservationist is working with.
The competition has been running on and off since 2002 and in the beginning, Bythell said people voted for “large, obvious, iconic and charismatic plants” like the kōwhai, tī kōuka (cabbage tree) and pōhutukawa.
Votes were becoming more creative these days, she said.
Last year’s winner, Leptinella nana, is a threatened tiny button daisy endemic to only three habitats in the country: near Titahi Bay, in the Rai Valley, Marlborough and near Mount Pleasant, in the Port Hills, near Christchurch.
The New Zealand Plant Conservation Network doesn’t limit which plants people can vote for, opening the field to all 2600 natives.
“You could choose a new favourite every year for a lifetime and still not get to the bottom of our diversity,” Bythell said.
Marion van Dijk/Nelson Mail
The Kākābeak is a perennial frontrunner in the Favourite Native Plant of the Year competition. [File photo]
As of Monday, Kākābeak was leading the vote, followed by Manahune gentian and Kōtukutuku (tree fuchsia).
Bythell invited Kiwis to head to www.nzpcn.org.nz to cast a vote or keep an eye on the leaderboard – just not all at once.
She joked that she was considering personally writing to John Oliver to ask the comedian not to promote the competition, for fear of recreating the Bird of the Year fiasco when the website crashed after he spoke about it on his American television show.
Voting closes on December 15.