Shades of Kōtukutuku

Distinctive peeling bark of kōtukutuku.

Gnarly old Kōtukutuku trees with flaky bark and polished, satin-smooth trunks are often found in wet shady gullies in the depths of the bush, although some seem to grow just as vigorously on sunny, fertile faces.

Kōtukutuku is one of the most easily recognised plants of our native bush.

Our tree fuschia (Fuschia excorticata) is the world's largest fuschia at up to 12metres tall. It is distinctive for its sprawling growth habit, light tan papery bark and pendulous flowers that hang like Christmas decorations in variable shades of green, purple and red.

The tree is common in lowland forests from sea level to an altitude of more than 1000 metres throughout Te Ika a Māui and Te Waipounamu. It is also found on Rakiura and as far south as the Auckland Islands.

Kōtukutuku is one of few native deciduous trees, shedding its papery bark and leaves in winter in cooler districts. It flowers from July to December, and the flowers are particularly attractive to bees and nectar feeding birds, while the whole plant is top of the menu for our wretched Aussie possum imports.

For many young Kiwis, their first introduction to smoking started in the dark recesses of the local bush by rolling up the flaky bark of kōtukutuku into a rustic roll-your-own cigar.


Kōtukutuku in fower.

For those of us unlucky enough to achieve combustion, the lungful of acrid smoke, nausea and gag reflex that resulted was enough to put us off smoking for life. If nothing else, it did instil one important lesson from our native bush – don't burn kōtukutuku!

In fact, Fuschia excorticata is extremely fire resistant, even when the timber has been cut and dried. The timber is reputedly very strong and durable, but bushmen know trying to burn it is like throwing a bucket of water on the fire.

According to pre-European Māori, kōtukutuku was protected by tapu and our tīpuna never used the timber for firewood because it caused illness. They warned that food cooked over kōtukutuku could cause temporary paralysis of the legs, gout and skin diseases.

The part of the plant they did value above all else was the large 10-15mm elongated black or purple berries. Known as kōnini, these berries were sweet and delicious to eat, ripe from December through to March.

Traditionally, kōnini were collected by men, who climbed the larger trees with a basket on their backs or shook the ripe fruit on to mats spread below.

Early settlers made jam from the berries or ate them stewed with fruit or in a kōnini pudding. In Westland the kōtukutuku tree is actually known by the name "kōnini".

According to one reluctant European diner, the berries were "rather insipid, but not an unpleasant flavour". Kiwi author Andrew Crowe is much more generous in his description of kōnini as "easily one of the best tasting fruits of the New Zealand bush".

In his ethnobotanical reference book Māori Healing and Herbal, Murdoch Riley records that one traveller and his companion "ate so many raw berries on one occasion that they both got a heavy sensation in the head, accompanied with slight fever, which they blamed on the berries".

Riley records that Māori women used the green leaves of three shrubs – tātarāmoa (bush lawyer), mangeao and kōtukutuku – which they threw with water on to hot stones to create vapour baths to induce the discharge of the afterbirth after childbirth.

The juice of the kōtukutuku is an astringent that was used to treat skin diseases, and the bark of the matoutou shrub (another regional name for a particular type of kōtukutuku) was boiled in a pint of water for an hour and the liquid was used to treat rheumatic pains.

Before European contact, Māori had few natural sources of the colour blue, so girls used the brilliant blue pollen from kōtuku-tuku flowers to colour their lips. In fact, youth of both sexes used the light blue pollen to decorate their faces.

Riley also records preparations made from a variety of plants, including kōtuku-tuku, to treat fevers and bruising.

Crowe notes in his Field Guide to the Native Edible Plants of New Zealand that kōnini berries also produce a purple dye that is said to make good ink. Kōtukutuku is one of the easiest of our native plants to grow from cuttings. It is a fine specimen of our native bush on properties with enough room for it to grow, but it needs to be pruned hard every year on smaller sections to keep it under control.

The reward for its unruly behaviour is the attraction its flowers offer the humble bumblebee, hard-working honey bees and nectar-eating birds like the tui and makoma-ko. And if you are patient, perhaps you will get to taste kōnini for yourself.