OUR NATIVE MANUKA

Evening Star, Issue 22596, 13 March 1937, Page 24

OUR NATIVE MANUKA

A TREE WITH MANY USES ; Visitors to our Dominion.have wondered at the almost countless acres of manuka through which they pass in their travels, and at the_ übiquity of this plant, which.grows in almost any situation (writes “ Petunia ” in the ‘Marlborough Expresst); In Australia only one of the manuka species is to be found, and then only in scattered .single plants, but the pure forests of manuka as they abound in. New Zealand fill the Australians with surprise. We surely are to be envied our possesesion of such a universally useful type of scrub, which can supply so many human needs, from a substitute for the “ cup that cheers ” to the provision of house blocks. ; Growing eu masse, the manuka provides :an efficient plant covering as a barrage against the threatened erosion of exposed slopes; where fire has passed a year or two sees a thick green cover springing up to clothe the dry, open scars of the landscape; but, unlike gorse, the, manuka acts as a kindly nurse, and beneath its protection, m the diffused shade there springs up a ne\t generation of bush species which otherwise could not survive the early exposure in the open. USED BY THE MAORIS. In the former days manuka, With totafa, was one of the trees most used by the Maoris. The outer bark was used to thatch houses, and fine strips of bark for the first kindling of fire by the rubbing process. The fencing stockade utilised the long stems of manuka, and for less serious uses the natives employed the leaves to scent their toilet oil. In present times manuka forms part of the stock-in-trade of the settler out back., He uses it for fencing posts and rails and protective works_ along river banks, while for firewood it is almost equal to coal in,hating qualities.-