South Island Edelweiss

I was delighted to find these beautiful wee edelweiss flowers today, flowering  (after going up and up and up) high on the Broken River skifield. I'd gone tramping with the Pegasus Tramping Club, my first time out with them, and hopefully not the last! It was a great day. Broken River is part of the Craigieburn Forest Park.

The scenery was wonderful! I've put a photo in Extras, of a group of us making our way back down, through the tussock, to the valley floor. Did I say there'd been a lot of 'up'? I was thankful to be going down at last, but it wasn't easy going through that beautiful golden tussock.

South Island edelweiss (Leucogenes grandiceps) is one of four species of native edelweiss, all found in alpine habitats. Their common name derives from the close similarity of their flowers to those of the European edelweiss (Leontopodium alpinum). Thanks Te Ara New Zealand encyclopaedia.