NATURE NOTES

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22109, 3 June 1937, Page 6 (Supplement)

NATURE NOTES

TUTU

tlSffifh Burgess has. sent a piece of ::|nßriDr description. She attends ftSW school at Kimbell, near Fairlie, ,-«i*ays the plant grows plentifully |Ar,tte school grounds. She adds cattle eat it they go mad. In IRi case the farmers bleed the IKbaal by cutting off its horns, ype plant is one known to most Mry people, who corrupt the tflni name to “toot.” It varies con.fHßHtMy in size and habit, accordtji to the place where it grows. ’ICMt common at low altitudes, it bHcrtheless ascends as high as 3000 •■tv-It may be a shrub only two gat high, but under favourable con-' -..Wluui it may grow to a height of p feet Then it would be called

Jjto-tutu. The leaves are from one ■ three inches long, dark green ■O4 shining, and are arranged opWfe each other on the stem. Although tutu is usually considJ**4 a weed, I always grow a plant ■ffly garden, for the sake of its gOtwas and berries. Not that the JOwas are strikingly beautiful or JOBS to size. What they lack there * made up for by the large num®o» produced, and the interesting yteture. They hang down in clusto on stalks. The flowers themare very smell, but the whole goth may be as long as 12 or 13 goes. They do not need visits from to carry the pollen to bring fertilisation. All that is necesis a gust or two of wind, clouds of pollen are transfrom the stamens of one to the pistils of another, has an ingenious method of 2*®oraglng self-pollination. The ripen some time before the s*Mns. a stalk with five sticky protrudes from the flower. Not ate they sticky, but they are wvetad with fine hairs to aid fur-

(By L. W. McCaskill)

ther in catching and holding windblown pollen. When they have been exposed long enough to catch pollen lor fertilising the seed, the tops of the pistils wither and drop off. In the meantime, the stamens have been growing, and now they hang well out of the flower to shed their pollen for carriage by the wind. So far the minute petals have performed no useful service. After fertilisation, however,, they grow, become fleshy and swollen, and filled with a purplish juice. Birds are attracted by these strange berries and ensure the dispersal of the tiny All’ kinds of tutu contain a very powerful poison in the seeds and

'shoots. This poison caused the deaths of large numbers of stock in the early days of settlement, and certain losses still occur. It is possible for stock to grow up on country with plenty of tutu growing, and suffer no bad effects. If they eat it when hungry after being driven on the road all day, many of them will be poisoned and some may die. The most famous case of poisoning is that of an elephant travelling with a circus in Otago many years ago. It fed freely on tutu and died in a few hours. If stock are “tooted,” farmers try to relieve them by bleeding, either by slitting the ears or by cutting off the horns. Quite a number of white people have been poisoned by eating tutu berries, and swallowing the seeds. Maori children who disobeyed orders and ate the berries were hung upside down in the smoke of a fire made of green leaves. The Maoris did not make many special drinks, but they were very fond of tutu Juice. In a good season they would collect as many berries

as possible. A large flax basket would be lined with toe-toe plumes and filled with tutu berries. If the berries were then squeezed the Juice would run out of the basket to be caught in a calabash, the seeds being caught in the toe-toe plumes. The fresh juice is sweet and quite pleasant to the taste. Some Maoris used to boil up a mixture of tutu juice and certain seaweeds to make a food much like our blanc-mange. This would be eaten in hot weather.