TREASURES OF TANE PLANTS OF NGAI TAHU

by Rob Tipa (Huia, $50)

Karaeopirita was once used to cauterise bullet wounds. Sometimes, its vines were pegged into the ground to create springy hoops that supported toddlers learning to walk. Consider this next time you’re bush bashing: In 1906, supplejack was a prototype baby bouncer. Using the 55 plants listed as taonga in Schedule 97 of the Nga¯ i Tahu Claims Settlements Act 1998 as its starting point, this book brings the bush — arguably New Zealand’s most defining feature — to life. Rob Tipa (Nga¯ i Tahu, Nga¯ ti Kahungunu) shares medicinal, botanical and cultural histories of plants that are important to Aotearoa and, especially, the South Island. The breadth of those stories is apparent in the index — A is for abortion and Y is for yam. The author delves deep into the archives, drawing on historic writings from Herries Beattie, Murdoch Riley, Elsdon Best and more to create highly readable mini-profiles of the individual plants that make up the country’s ubiquitous green whole. It’s a book of words, not pictures. Each species gets just one full-colour photograph and while you might sometimes wish for more (fruit, berries, juvenile v adult?) you’ll definitely see New Zealand bush differently after reading. From karamu¯ (a palatable substitute for coffee) to karaka (a berry so poisonous that victims were buried upright to their necks to control convulsions) to kahikatea (an odourless wood perfect for building butter boxes) this is the New Zealand landscape in 50-plus shades of green.