L. M. CRANWELL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 129, 2 June 1934, Page 2 (Supplement)

L. M. CRANWELL.

(ill up inches deep on the footpaths. Karo'e seeds are large ami black, with a changeless sheen that attracts (lie birds. Pobutukawa has a summer glory, but karo looks a.s well in fruit as in flower. In Sept ember and October the small, richly coloured .flowers of karo appear. They are rcdd>di <»' cocoa coloured, with their live lit lie sepals folded back and their five petals overlapping to form a neat bell. Von will find that the pistillate flowers occur in much smaller bunches than 'do the pollen-bearing ones. White flowers have been collected, but they arr rare. The ripening fruit is pale green, softly hairy, and very obviously made up of three parts. On splil ting open they reveal masses of black seeds, set in sticky golden strands which jjluo them to any animal visiting in search of food. A .small tree smothered with these open capsules amongst its green and silver leaves is an extremely pretty sight.

Its quiet beauty of foliage, flowers and fruit, its rapid, even growth and extreme hardiness have earned it a place as a specimen tree in our gardens, but most of all it is suited for hedges.

Handsomest of all our pitjtosponjnjs. as far as the fruits ure concerned, is pittosponim cornifolium, a slender, twiggy shrub that perches on trees together with kolmrangi, the misty white daisy, in amongst tlie astelias. It has a smaller pointed capsule, its blaek seeds in a brilliant and stieky orange setting It was (his stickiness that earned them the scientific name of p.ittosporum, i.e.. "pitchy seeded." How well it acts in seed dispersal you will realise when you find that this oranj<c-svede<l "inn aioha'" can start life ill the forest on limbs and trunks of trees to which they arc carried by birds. All Miese pitlospnriinis contain sweet resins, and tarata is the sweetest of all. Maori warriors prized it, gathering it themselves, to I'ub into their smooth brown skins.