KOTUKUTUKU, KOHUTUHUTU

Fuchsia excorticata

Tree fuchsia

A very colourful tree which is found growing in groups in open forests throughout the three islands of New Zealand and at all altitudes up to 3,000 feet. It has a short trunk and may be any height from ten to forty-five feet in good conditions.

In Otago it is deciduous, but in the north these trees retain their leaves. These are two to five inches long, soft in texture, pale green on the upper side, but silver with touches of pale green and pink underneath. They grow singly from the branchlets.

The buds are waxy and streaked with purple, and open into flowers which are crimson, purple and scarlet, and hang down on short stems from under the leaves, and bloom during the spring. The pollen, instead of being yellow as is more usual, is a wonderful blue and exudes a sticky substance.

The fruit is an oblong, purplish—black berry, about an inch in length and known as konini. \Vhen ripe in December and January it has a delicious flavour and can be eaten raw. It is sought after by tuis and pigeons as food. The opossums find this fruit to their liking and vie with the birds for the berries.

The adult tree has a flaky, papery bark, of soft cinnamon brown. This peels off in long strips and makes the tree easy to recognise. An unusual feature is that the stem is a bright green under the bark. Early settlers used the strips of bark as tobacco. They rolled it between the hands and made it into a cigarette. It was rather a hot smoke, but burned well.

The leaves of the tree fuchsia had a very important use for Maori women. After childbirth they sometimes used a vapour bath on the first and second days after their confinement, the bath lasting an hour each time. Heated stones were thrown into water in which the leaves had already been steeped for a while. Three varieties of leaves were used - tataramoa, mangeao and fuchsia.

Four species of fuchsia are indigenous to New Zealand — one a tree, one a creeper, and one a shrub and one a herb.