Ecologist Robert Vennell is a person mad on vegetation. His booklet The meaning of trees: The history and use of latest Zealand's native bushes tells the experiences of the wooded area giants – kauri, tōtara et al – and the kelp that throngs our beaches. He writes concerning the oddballs, the plants that are revered, and people used for eating and curative. And he writes in regards to the mongrels. seems two of our most-loathed bush dwellers – supplejack and ongaonga – are at once approach extra disturbing and means more fascinating than we gave them credit for.
SUPPLEJACK
A trap for eels, rats and people
The thick, black, scrambling vines of supplejack are a particular feature of the brand new Zealand woodland. In Māori subculture, the vines were referred to as 'pirita' or 'kareao', and grew from the tail of the great eel god, Tunaroa. When Māui's wife, Raukura, was gathering water from a flow, Tunaroa knocked her over with his giant tail and insulted her. In revenge, Māui ambushed Tunaroa, digging a trench for him to comply with after which catching him and hacking him to items with his axe. The blood of Tunaroa turned into spattered throughout birds equivalent to pūkeko and okāokāriki, and plant life reminiscent of rimu, tōtara and matai, giving them their numerous red colouring. Tunaroa's dismembered head become thrown into the sea to give upward thrust to marine eels, while the tail gave upward push to the freshwater eels. The very tip of the tail took root within the woodland to turn into the supplejack vine, which from then on changed into used to assemble eel traps, to trap the infants of Tunaroa. Māui's instance is a good e-book to catching eels: dig trenches, steer them into shallow water then construct traps for them with supplejack vines.
A wall of vines
Ever considering the fact that these legendary times, supplejack has confirmed some thing of a lure for people as well. Dense thickets of supplejack deliver a nearly impenetrable barrier to moving about in the bush. anybody who's well-known with tramping off-music in New Zealand woodland is probably going to be commonplace with the odd sort of bush yoga this is required to navigate throughout the tangled vines. Some Māori believed that these dense walls of supplejack were created through the magical patupaiarehe, or fairy folk, who weaved fortifications to hold individuals out of their misty wooded area buildings.
the rigors of contending with supplejack had been recounted by the primary Europeans to discover New Zealand walking. whereas anchored in Dusky Sound, Captain James cook dinner wrote in his journal:
in lots of materials the woods are so over-run with supplejacks, that it's scarcely feasible to force one's approach amongst them. I even have viewed a few which have been fifty or sixty fathoms long.
Ever considering that, the plant has supplied a barrier to all kinds of explorers, settlers and troopers. One early Nelson settler surveying land for the new Zealand enterprise in comparison weaving through a supplejack woodland to a blowfly attempting to flow through a tangled hairbrush.
The lengthy vines had been additionally the reason behind a couple of accidents and deaths within the early days of agreement. There are stories from the trees business of men trying to flee from falling trunks and rolling logs, simplest to be tripped up by means of a length of supplejack and beaten. Wayward supplejack vines have despatched people plummeting to their deaths off the sides of cliffs, and one missing goldminer changed into at last found strangled via supplejack in a gully.
regardless of the affliction it motives, supplejack can occasionally be of assistance when clambering about in the woodland. The noted Pākehā explorers Thomas Brunner and Charles Heaphy used the vines to abseil down perilous cliff faces and precipices when making their famous trip around the north-west of the South Island. greater lately, the survival knowledgeable endure Grylls used supplejack to descend a cascading 37-metre waterfall while demonstrating survival recommendations within the New Zealand wooded area.
Robert Vennell. image: Matthew Catin
A terror of the bush
Supplejack was to play a decisive role in the New Zealand Wars of the 19th century. For Māori, supplejack became an competencies, because it allowed them to bind together palisade walls and rescue wounded warriors from the battlefield by using looping vines round their ankles and dragging them to safety. The damaged stems were utilized to cuts and grazes, and are said to have astringent properties that stop bleeding. For higher wounds, a piece of dry supplejack became ignited and burned near the reduce to cauterise the wound.
In contrast, the colonial forces needed to fight a double war against Māori and supplejack. closely clad infantry were frequently held up by way of the plant catching their bulky packs and bayonets, and strategic manoeuvres were frequently seriously delayed by this sluggish growth. This led many British soldiers to strengthen an intense concern of the bush. One soldier recounted all through the Taranaki wars that his platoon would retreat in the face of even the smallest bush fragment:
i will be able to handiest believe that we have been scared by using the terrors of the bush in entrance of us, to the extent of dropping our reasoning faculties. it is the trees which combat the battles for the natives, and the very sight of a supplejack insures us a whipping …
It turned into in massive half on account of supplejack, as neatly because the complicated terrain of the new Zealand bush, that the British military created an elite corps of 'wooded area Rangers' — the forerunners of today's special Operations Forces. These evenly trained bushmen had been fitted with brief knives, small packs and revolvers, and had been trained in tramping off-music, weaving via supplejack vines, and firing off rounds as they ducked at the back of bushes.
potent and pliable
although it will also be a nuisance, supplejack has proved itself an exceptionally effective and practical plant as smartly. It changed into a valued medicinal plant for Māori, with an infusion of the basis being used to treat blood problems, dermis ailments, rheumatism, fever, bowel complaints, sexually transmitted diseases and heavy menstrual move. There are even some reviews that the decoction turned into under the influence of alcohol by using pregnant women with the intention to trigger an abortion.
possibly its most effective value turned into in building, where it was used substantially by using each Māori and Pākehā.
The difficult, pliable, woody stem supplied an excellent material for making baskets and sheep hurdles, and became valuable in binding together fences, properties, canoes and systems. The sturdy vines additionally made impressive pots, traps and nets for catching crayfish, eels and fish such as okayōkopu.
A length of the vine can be usual into a walking stick or hollowed out and made into a musical instrument, comparable to a trumpet or bullroarer.
Supplejack vines have been often employed by Māori when searching kiore, the Polynesian rat. Little sections of vines can be cut to make small trapdoor cages that swung shut. They were additionally made into spring snare traps, such as the tāwhiti makamaka. One conclusion was break up, propped open with twine, and baited with forest berries similar to miro. to ensure that the rat to entry the bait, it had to gnaw through the wire maintaining the cut up stem apart. This launched the supplejack, which sprung returned with splendid force, catching the bad kiore in a noose and killing it directly.
Ongaonga. photo: John Braggins
ONGAONGA
A deadly stinger with ache-killing residences
unlike its neighbour, Australia, New Zealand has only a few dangerous animals. however vegetation are a unique story. Lurking in the New Zealand woodland is among the greatest stinging nettles on the planet, packed with sufficient poison to kill a completely grown human, and considered with the aid of some because the world's most dangerous stinging plant.
In 1961 two young hunters in the Ruahine degrees stumbled right into a patch of the new Zealand tree nettle ongaonga. They have been evenly clad, and were badly stung on their arms and legs. An hour later probably the most men had difficulty going for walks and respiratory, and shortly misplaced his sight. He died five hours later in medical institution. whereas this is still the simplest demonstrated human death on checklist, there is an unconfirmed file of a person who went skinny-dipping in a river, was stung all over through ongaonga earlier than he might get his outfits on, and died quickly after.
Most who are stung calmly via ongaonga survive, however a number have been bedridden for a couple of days in a serious condition.
The supply of ongaonga's toxicity is an array of toxic syringe-like spines. When an unfortunate sufferer disturbs the plant, the spines are released — the sharp tip breaks off and the toxic components are launched into the epidermis. This injects a strong cocktail of compounds — histamine, serotonin and acetylcholine — which enter into the bloodstream and manipulate the apprehensive device. The skin turns into strongly inflamed and intensely painful, and in severe situations the victim begins drooling and dropping their sight. With greater doses, the sufferer loses motor coordination and starts off to convulse violently.
analysis on the toxic compound has discovered that simply 5 of these stinging spines are satisfactory to kill a guinea pig, and ongaonga has killed canines, cattle and horses during the past. The historian James Cowan recalled one such event when two guys by chance rode a pair of horses through a patch of ongaonga.
The horses had been stung ferociously. pushed wild, they threw their riders and bolted. One horse rushed into a river and drowned; the different was found lifeless within the wooded area someday later.
curiously, despite the fact, possums, goat and deer seem to eat ongaonga without a obvious results.
A husband entice
Māori believed ongaonga had been positioned within the bush to stay away from americans moving around freely. One edition of the tale is that Kupe had stolen the better halves of his brother-in-legislation Hoturapa. As Kupe fled the indignant husband, he left limitations on the course behind him — tātarāmoa, matagouri and the stinging ongaonga — as a means of slowing down his pursuer. The identical story is told in a lot of alternative ways, and the names of the characters and vegetation vary counting on the place you are within the country. The standard concept, despite the fact, continues to be the equal: that from the very earliest days ongaonga became a plant used to slow individuals down and annoy and irritate them.
There are even anecdotes that Māori intentionally planted ongaonga as a shielding barrier in opposition t intruders, and used the plant in defensive palisades, growing it between burnt stakes of mānuka.
Ongaonga become often invoked for anything in Māori life that was annoying or disturbing. A irritating grownup was called he tangata ongaonga — a prickly grownup. And when performing a rite of divorce, a tohunga might call upon ongaonga to trigger the sad couple's dermis to prickle any time they had been collectively.
ache relief
traditionally, Māori boiled the bark of ongaonga with kawakawa leaves as a remedy for eczema and venereal disease. It was either drunk or utilized to the skin. remote places, dock is a traditional remedy for nettle stings, and the leaves of added dock were used to treat ongaonga stings by way of Pākehā and Māori.
slightly counterintuitively, the stinging leaves of ongaonga can also in the future supply a scientific treatment for chronic ache. When a sufferer is stung, there is an initial rush of excessive ache, but here's then followed by using a period of extended numbness and insensitivity. while scientists have a reasonably decent address on what explanations the potent stinging response, the compounds accountable for the numbing after-outcomes are poorly understood. at the moment a world analysis group has begun preliminary work to isolate these numbing compounds. If a success, the work could outcomes in new therapeutics for persistent ache from circumstances equivalent to diabetes, leprosy and autoimmune ailments.
despite the hazard, ongaonga changed into every now and then eaten by Māori as meals. The massive stems were peeled, and the pith inner, which just a little resembles the inner threads of lacebark, become eaten raw; it is declared to style somewhat candy. The flora can even be used because the basis for a delicately flavoured honey, similar to that produced by thistle.
crimson admiral
One animal, despite the fact, has develop into proof against the toxic results of ongaonga. The red admiral butterfly lays its eggs on the brand new increase of ongaonga leaves. right here, its caterpillar larvae hatch and spend up to six weeks feeding on the leaves. during this vulnerable stage the caterpillars use the leaves for protection, wrapping them around themselves like a blanket or developing a small tent through which to cover from would-be predators, akin to birds, spiders and other bugs. purple admiral populations appear to were declining in recent years, and it is speculated that this may well be partly the outcome of individuals treating ongaonga as a weed and putting off it from bush, lawns and parks.
© The that means of timber: The history and use of recent Zealand's native vegetation, by using Robert Vennell (HarperCollins, $55), available at team spirit Books.
Robert Vennell seems at the Auckland Writers competition on can also 19.
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