MAORI NATURE NOTES

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XX, Issue 162, 28 June 1930, Page 8

MAORI NATURE NOTES

FOR TRIBUNE READERS •, __ (Copyright—J.H.S.) Readers of the “Tribune” who are interested in the flora and bird life of New Zealand, by cutting out these Maori Nature Notes each day as they appear and tiling them in a suitable scrap book, may compile a book of reference which will be to them a source of pleasure ami instruction in tire years to come. PUKETOI (mountain palm), related to the cabbage tree,, but altogether more beautiful and relatively less seen. In the young plant, tho splendid leaves rise from the base and stand up four or five feet high, with a width of three to four inches. Red mid rib and reddish veins stand out in contrast to its gray green surface. The fibre is longer and stronger than flax. A half inch strip would tax a man’s strength. When pulled, the cuticle gives way, leaving the fibre taut. This peculiarity gives to tho Pukctoi the popular name of elastic flax. A foot length of it will stretch to fifteen inches. Gradually tho thick stem rises to fifteen feet in about twenty-five years, forming a handsome palm with a grent bunch of leaves at the top. A splendid garden tree in all its stages. Fifty years ago a fair shipment of the leaves and those of tho sister cabbage tree were sent to England and made into art paper. Sea and land transport were then too difficult. Now is the time, for there is a huge annual crop of both these fibre plants wasting.