This mushroom, notable for its bright blue colour that fades with age, grows throughout New Zealand in decomposing plant remains. Nobel Prize medal and diagram The Nobel Prize in Chemistry, which Rutherford received in 1908, is represented on the note. Overlaying the medallion is a graph plotting the results from Rutherford's investigations into naturally occurring radioactivity. The yellowhead, sometimes known as the bush canary, is a diminutive and colourful bird. It is found in tracts of native bush throughout the South Island, preferring the canopies and sub-canopies of beech forests.
Beech forests are one of the two main types of forest in New Zealand.
Red beeches grow up to 30 metres high and are named for the colour of the young tree's leaves. Favouring warmer and more fertile sites than do other beeches, their red wood is considered to be the most durable. Red beech is found in both North and South Islands and is the favoured habitat of the yellowheads in the Eglinton Valley. Eglinton Valley Located within the Fiordland National Park on the Te Anau-Milford Sound highway, the Eglinton Valley is home to a particularly fine stand of red beech and a thriving population of yellowheads. Found in Fiordland beech forests, this distinctively patterned moth blends perfectly with the lichens that cling to the trunks of the trees.