Colin Ogle wrote, "The article in the latest NZNO Journal (J94) about Michael Pratt's finding of
Caladenia alata at Rainbow Mountain sent me back to my notebooks and slides (and took me
back 35 or more years too!)

"I lived in Te Puke 1964-68 and botanised largely on my own, being unaware of other botanists
in the Bay of Plenty who were interested in orchids or other herbaceous native plants. I visited Rainbow Mountain several times in different seasons to catch as many orchids in flower as possible and also to list other plants there. In 1975 I led an Easter trip for the Wellington Botanical Society to the Rotorua District and we camped in the pine forest just east of Rainbow Mountain.

Tony Druce was on that trip and, with his help, my plant list was extended greatly, although
because it was autumn we did not add any flowering orchids. The list became part of Druce's
extensive collection of unpublished plant lists, as `Rainbow Mountain (Mt Maungakakaramea)
SSE of Rotorua; List 87'. These lists are held in the library of Landcare Research NZ Ltd, Lincoln.

"The Caladenia and Thelymitra orchids that I recorded at Rainbow Mountain by sketches and/or
35 mm slides in the late 1960s contained several whose identities I was never sure about.

However, when I look at the cover of the NZNO Journal 94, one of my slides seems to be C. alata too. Since I was sending that one, I thought you might as well see the other slides from Rainbow Mt, including two Calochilus species, C. robertsonii, C. paludosus and several Thelymitra. Obviously the names I wrote on the slides and in the notebook need considerable updating - my authorities in the 1960s were Cheeseman's Manual of the NZ Flora (1925) and Hatch's Auckland's Orchids."