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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 7, Issue 7 (December 1, 1932)

Lore of the Bush

Lore of the Bush.

This season many of our young town-living people are seeing more of the country and the bush, thanks to the “mystery” train excursions, than ever they did before. This is all to the good; young New Zealanders, male and female after their kind, are all the better for learning to appreciate the beauty of the fine things in Nature, which no introduced trees and plants can ever equal in interest. The lore of the bush is full of charm, and the peculiar value of many trees and shrubs is coming to be appreciated by people who in the beginning did not know one native tree from another.

Just one example here of the interest, and in fact the possible commercial value, attaching to a tree seen in most of our forests. This is the handsome and useful page 46 tawhero, or kamahi, whose botanical name is Weinmannia racemosa. Wellington train excursionists recently were shown some specimens of it in Mr. W. H. Field's bush, at Waikanae. The bark of this tawhero is rich in tannin, like its cousin the towai, and the Maoris long ago discovered its uses. They bruised the bark and boiled it with the flax they wished to colour for their cloaks and mats. After boiling the flax for a short while in this decoction, they took it out and steeped it in red swamp mud, which contains peroxide of iron, and then dried it in the sun. This process coloured the flax an unfading red; a variation in the method produced a good brown dye. Some day, perhaps, the tawhero will be appreciated by the pakeha at its right value, and will then be cultivated and become a source of wealth and build up one more local industry.

And our forests are full of trees and shrubs whose useful properties are known to the wise old Maoris. The medicinal value of many of our plants is in itself a subject that calls for scientific research, by, say, the Cawthron Institute.