NATURE NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 117, 13 November 1926, Page 15

NATURE NOTES

WONDERS OF PLANT LIFE

"THE FLOWER OF HADES"

(By B. H. D. Stidolph, 8.A.0.U.)

In a particularly crisply-writtenbook, Miss Marguerite Crookes, M.A., has contributed a valuable addition to New Zealand literature on the Dominion* plant-life; The style of treatment is so simple that the veriest tyro can find no obstacles to a complete understanding of the text. Touching mainly on the biological aspect, many interesting devices of Nature avo revealed—in the bush, on the seashore, by moor and marsh, above the world, and among humbler brethren. ''The luxuriant beauty and infinite variety and interest of a tropical jungle without any of its terrors and alarms"—the kauri forest, the glory of the North, where even the mosses are on a large scale, for there flourishes a giant moss, reaching two feet high; the story of the existence of the astelias perched high up on some forest giant, and how this plant has evolved a reservoir to preserve itself from periods of drought; the graceful beauty of the "tree-ferns, the giants of fernland; the strange transformation of the lancewood, in which ,the, juvenile form so greatly differs from the mature tree; the strange devices to secure pollination, of the'iuapeka, an crchidj and the wonderful adaptation of some of the roots to absorb moisture—a plant ''provided with so many ingenious contrivances for its comfort and convenience, that it is, small wonder that ruapeka is able to maintain life successfully under apparently unpromising circumstances, and year by year send forth its exquisite sprays to delight us" —are described in clear terms and in detail. Other strange happenings in the bush are tpld, notably how the puriri and rewarowia offer inducements to tuis and bellbirds to pollinate their flowers; how "the child of the stars," the clematii, proceeds on its arboreal ramblings; how" the tiny florets forming a "single" blossom of a tree-top daisy, Senecio Kirkii, are constructed, and incidentally explaining all the ingenious devices that have secured for the dairy family a position pre-eminent; in the •■ plant world; how some of this ratas—climbing myrtles—have adopted the climbing habit; why the coprosma 'leaf ■'_'■' has little pits or punctures where the lateral veins branch off, the main vein running down the centre; why the fall of the leaf, which occurs in few New Zaland plants, is a protection against weather, and more particularly drought;- the unscrupulous tactics of "the Mower of Hades," and the life of the nikau, "an emblem of the Tropics."

' The "Flower of Hades" is the New Zealand representative of a small family, chiefly tropical, of root-parasites. It was first discovered in New Zealand by the Key. B. Taylor in 1857, growing on roots of Pittosporum and Nothogagus, near the head-waters of the1 Wanganui Eiver. It has since been met with in several widely-distributed localities in the North Island. "Though not common, once seen, the plant is readily identified," ~ writes Miss Crookes. "In the first place it differs from nearly all other bush plants in that it is brown instead of green. In addition to this it makes its presence known by a 'delicious daphne-like odour,' or by an odour equally strong, but so undaphne-like that the passerby is more likely to decamp than investigate further. Should he, however, make a closer inspection, ha would notice a number of thick, fleshy shootsy several inches high, consisting of a stalk and a grotesque flower-head, about an inch and a half long, and shaped rather like an egg with the top cut off. The flower-head contains a number of fin-ger-like processes bearing minute flowers. The stems and flower-headr are protected by numbers of small overlapping brown scales. . . . The method by which Dactylanthus Taylori (as this plant is known scientifically) obtains food from its host, is most curi-

ous and interesting. . . .A seed becomes worked into the leaf-mould until it comes in contact with a suitable root. If it does not find one it dies, and thus many seeds pay the penalty of their thieving, natures. Having found a suitable root, the seed 'gets busy.' The end of a delicate root is chosen, and in a short time a small wart-like swelling will appear. Having attached itßelf thus, the young plant does not kill the root; on the contrary, root and parasite develop together. But the parasite affects the root so that its development becomes irregular; it still lives and grows, but in the way which is most convenient to its unwelcome lodger. . . . When the tuber reaches a suitable size it sends up flower-heads during the flowering season —that is, between February and April. • The flower-heads contain finger-like rods, each one bearing, a, great number of small, very much reduced flowers. ... Inside the

flowers are white, brownish, or a curious fleshy pink in colour."

1 Another interesting chapter in Miss Crookes 's book is one pn the distribution of the seeds of "New Zealand plants. There are two main agents associated with their dispersal—birds and the wind. Usually, the fruits adapted for distribution by birds are the more attractive. They usually take the form of eojne sort of berry containing food agreeable to the bird, and, in order to bring themselves <mder the notice of their visitors, they adopt vivid and arresting colours. The dispersal of the seed of the mistletoe, which grows parasitioally , upon the branches and twigs of trees, is interesting. In the case of the English species, the seeds embedded in the fleshy part of the berry are extremely sticky, so that some of. them, instead of being swallowed by the bird, adhere to the outside of its bill. Finding the seeds inconvenient, it proceeds to dispose of them by scraping its beak against the bark, thus inevitably planting the seeds in the little crevices. It it probable the New Zealand.mistletoe is dispensed in the same way. The parapara has seeds which exude a glutinous substance, and enables them to adhere readily to the plumage of birds. "'Some plants do not give their seeds directly to,birds," adds Miss Crookes, "and yet birds act as dutributors. The fruits of certain swamp plants, for example, are neither pleasant to the taste nor provided with any kind of hook, and yet the birds carry them away." The feet of the pukeko, when wandering here and there in search of food, become covered with the damp mud in which the seeds are embedded, and as the pukeko seeks new places, the seeds go with her.