TUTIN POISONING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19721, 22 August 1927, Page 12

TUTIN POISONING.

Sir,—ln reply to Mr. C. A. Corban's request for information concerning the "tutu" (short), the following may satisfy*. It is a plant of three varieties: a tree, a shrub, and, sparsely, on the outlying rock islets of the Chatham Islands, a creeper. In pre-pakeha days, the Maori boiled a lettuce-like seaweed, and, mixing this with the strained tutu berry juice, sweetened with . phcrmium tenax (Sax) honey, let the same cool into a jelly, to his taste, a condiment for chiefs. It is still a subject of debate whether-the poisonous portion' of the tutu lies in the seed or leaf and stem. My own experience confines it to the latter, as shown by this: A sister, a brother and I (15 —the others younger) bringing home the cows, took shelter during a shower under a tutu tree, from whose roots grew thick luscious young shoots which my sister and brother peeled and ate. On the way home both vomited out what they had eaten, but sufficient must have remained to cause the convulsions that followed during the next 12 hours, until further emetics had removed the whole. Their bodies assumed a blue tint, especially the armpits and groins. I am further confirmed in my opinion that the poison lies in the plant's juice and not the seed, from the fact that we frequently plucked the fruit and sucked the juice, and hence must have swallowed some seeds with never ill-effects. Other evidence lay in this: On low hills 6f our sheep-run lay a- thick cover of the totu in its shrub variety. The sheep were permitted to feed on it, till we discovered the next day some 200 dead, and others in their throes, blue of tint on tongues and woolless parts. They, being newly unyarded, must have eaten too greedily and too great- a quantity, for the plant grew (sparsely) everywhere, and had been fed upon before this calamity. I believe the late Mr. W. Skeye, of the Wellington Museum laboratory, succeeded in isolating from the juire a crystaline deposit, but am not sure. His attempts with the karaka were quite successful, for he showed me the result, as named by him "karakine." He was deeply interested in the toxic qualities of New Zealand plants W. B. Otobqhanga.