The Scarlet Kowhai.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 365, 5 March 1932, Page 8

The Scarlet Kowhai.

Nature Notes

By

James Drummond, F.L.S., F.Z.S.

gOMEBODY occasionally raises the question whether the scarlet kowhai, Clianthus puniceus, often called kaka-bill on account of the shape of its flowers, is strictly a native of New Zealand. The species is a New Zealander, but it seldom is found growing wild. It has been reported wild from the Mohakatina River, in the Mokau district, Taranaki, where Maoris call it s kowhai-ngutu-kakariki, meaning the kowhai with a parrakeet’s bill. Another place in which it grows wild is a cliff at Te Rau-a-moa, about 108 miles south of Auckland City. The only place in the South Island where it has been found wild is on the bank of a small stream, the Flags River, a few miles south of Kekerangi station, near the east coast of Marlborough. The impression that this conspicuous flower was brought to New Zealand by Europeans may have arisen from the fact that there is a close connection, another species of Clianthus damperei, in South Australia, and a third species on the island of Ceram, in the Indian Archipelago. There is a story of an early immigrant who had a single plant of the scarlet kowhai in England. He felt that it would be a suitable plant to establish in New Zealand. Coming through the Tropics, he kept it alive by giving it his ration of water. Landing at Lyttelton, he was astonished to see the scarlet kowhai in the settlers’ gardens.