IN PRAISE OF MANUKA

Hokitika Guardian, 25 October 1930, Page 6

IN PRAISE OF MANUKA

(Auckland “Star.”) The average New Zealander’s contempt for all things native is a source of constant amazement to me. Ask anyone you know to, describe manuka, and it is more than likely that he will answer, "Oh, you mean tea-tree, it’s a scrubby-jooking plant with a small, white flower!’” This description, is a fairly accurate one if applied to many of the South Island specimens I have seen, hut it hears a very faint resemblance to the more northern varieties; so faint, indeed, as to be almost non-exit-ent. 1 am living on the Mangonui Harbour, and it is the farthest north that I have stayed yet. Here the manuka grows luxuriantly,' the young plants being most graceful, though they become like any humans, a little angular with age. The blooms are o! infinite variety, pink, however, being much more common thairevhfte, and of these there is every conceivable shade, though all that I have noticed so far have one pecularity, an appearance of having the colour added after the completion of the flower —rather as though some colour-loving pixie had wandered at will amongst white blooms touching them up with a fairy paint brush. I have before me as I write some sprays of exquisite bloom. One, an extra large pink, with a centre that looks as though it was composed of red-brown velvet, is unusually beautiful, hut 1 think the pixie must have run out of paint before completing the job. For, whereas most of the blossoms are of a deep pink a few are so pale as to be almost white, while an odd petal is dabbed with colour only on one place. A white spray i.s here, very fragile and pretty, but the blooms are not so large as some I have seen, and there is one of the very palest blush. And here is what I call a “frilled” manuka. In appearance it is growing a little late in the year for manuka, August and September being the best months, but one can still gather a large bunch of different varieties if one has the time and patience. For myself, it is a fascinating pastime which never palls. —THANKFUL BLOSSOM.