Resurrecting Wellington’s Flowers of the Underworld

Until a chance discovery in 2024, nobody had seen Dactylanthos taylorii, AKA te pua o Te RÄ"inga “the flower of the underworld†in the Wellington region for more than a hundred years. These unique parasitic flowering plants were thought to have been driven to extinction by introduced pests until a Greater Wellington City Council contractor stumbled across a small population of the plants clinging to life in the bush near Wainuiomata. Now the race is on to protect the plants.