Kohuhu

Kohuhu

Kohuhu is the Maori name for a small indigenous tree which is very common in New Zealand. I’ve seen it in house gardens around the UK and Ireland and it’s also found in floral arrangements there. I’m told there are some forty acres of it growing somewhere around London to supply greenery to the florist market. Botanically it’s Pittosporum tenuifolium and there are many cultivars, garden varieties of it, and worldwide there are about two hundred types of Pittosporum as well as their various cultivars. The early NZ settlers weren’t botanists, so called it Black Matipo as distinct from Red Matipo which is Myrsine australis, a different genus altogether.

From time to time German wasps or Bellbirds fracture the grey bark of the Kohuhu to make it bleed a sweet sap, and they have done it to a large tree close to my nursery where I watch the interplay as I work. Or if I have a mind to, I can creep right up to the action because the feeders are too busy to be bothered by my presence. The bark is smooth but the Bellbird’s scrawny feet can cling to it. I see their tongue licking at the sap, or sometimes the foamed sap, when it mixed with the rainwater. Maybe it’s ice cream to them! They seem to have no fear of me, though after two or three licks, they turn their head from side to side, looking, but they’re looking for their own kind.’ because while feeding they feel vulnerable to their aggressive, dive-bombing mates. Often when they fly off with the other one in hot pursuit, they duck, swerve and dive through branches and leaves like green flashes in the sunlight, with just a few centimetres separating them! They are unafraid of the wasps! In fact the wasps have to give up the prime spot, when the Bellbird appears. The wasps buzz around their heads but they show no anxiety.

German wasps are a curse to our environment! I c have a deep loathing for the yellow and black critters! So when I have a mind to, I drizzle carbryl powder over them while they are feeding, in the hope they will carry it off with them to their nest. It stops their visits temporarily but hasn’t killed the nest yet! Actually I haven’t been able to locate it, or I would have dealt with it long ago! There are usually about twenty wasps feeding or buzzing around the tree at any one time, which suggest the carbryl is having an effect. But German wasps are hardy, they operate well after it’s too cold for bees to be out working. During the breeding season their grubs need protein in their diet, and I watch them take blowflies, which are also attracted to the sweet sap. The wasps clasp and sting the blowfly to immobilise it, chew off its head and they fly off with the body to their nest. The body of a blowfly is somewhat heavier than that of a wasp so they struggle to make headway through the air, I’ve even seen them hovering with their load!

The other visitors to the sap-spring are Red and Yellow Admiral butterflies. When their wings are closed, it looks like they have big, round eyes, which is perhaps the reason the wasps don’t attack them. Bellbirds also eat insects, but they don’t touch the butterflies either, but they do rob dead blowflies off the wasps! When the wasp buzz too close to the butterflies, they give their wings a little flap, perhaps to warn them off, or in preparation of flight, I can’t decide. Butterflies are far more aware of their surrounding than I ever gave them credit for, they can fly off for some distance, but manage to relocate the sap-spring to jab their proboscis into the sap.

During my sessions with the carbryl, I have to scare off the butterflies and the Bellbirds. While the Bellbirds fly off, maybe to the nectar-rich climbing Abutilon bush, the butterflies are much harder to dislodge, and they return quickly, trying their luck. I’m careful to wash down the tree after my powdering session because birds and butterflies are one of the pleasures of being alive. Soon I must patch up the wounds in the tree, because I have seen similar instances where the tree was eventually killed by the robbery of life-giving sap!

One of the ongoing natural adventures in my garden.