Apodasmia similis (jointed wire rush, oioi), Nelson. From the album, 'Coastal plant formations at north end of Boulder Bank, Nelson', compiled by Leonard Cockayne

This extract originally appeared in New Zealand Photography Collected: 175 Years of Photography in Aotearoa (Te Papa Press, 2025).

It is difficult to be completely sure whether the album that contains these photographs was compiled by botanist Leonard Cockayne, or simply acquired by him. It may have been assembled by the botanical photographer William C Davies. But in either case, it is a wonderfully considered album, beginning with an establishing shot of the northern part of Nelson’s Boulder Bank, showing closer views of habitats, clumps of particular plants and individual specimens in the studio — right down to the cross-sections of the soil with the plants that grow in them.