Rose by any other name ...

Press, 7 February 1986, Page 18

Rose by any other name ...

Although the Canterbury Museum no longer houses a botanical collection, it still has a box of those rather bizarre botanical specimens known as “wood flowers” or “wooden roses” retained for their curiosity rather than their scientific value. Wooden roses are the deformed roots of trees or shrubs, the deformation being caused by the attack of another plant, the root-parasite, Dactylanthus taylori. It is found most abundantly on the volcanic plateau in the centre of the North Island, but also in other parts of the same island.

Above ground, the plant appears as flowering stems from five to 15 centimetres in length, with minute, tightly packed flowers at the end, the remain-

der clothed in brown, overlapping, scale-like leaves. It is, however, the subterranean rhizome (a root-like stem) which attaches itself to the root of the host tree and creates the wooden rose. These rhizomes may weigh several kilograms and are quite hard, with a rough, warty, surface.

To locate the wooden rose, this rhizome has to be boiled until soft and then the fleshy mass scraped away when it can be seen that the host root has formed into a fluted flowerlike shape at the original point of attachment.

One account I read credited this oddity of nature with several different Maori names. These included “puti puti o te pouri" (flower of darkness), “pua o te

reinga" (flower of the other world), and an East Coast name, "wae wae.atua" (the foot or toes of an atua or spirit). On the other hand, both Williams’ and Biggs’ Maori dictionaries attribute names such as these to Dactylanthus taylori itself and this is something I have not been able to resolve. But the nature of the names — especially one like “flower of darkness” — suggests that they actually apply to the wooden rose. I must confess that that

would be my interpretation. On one thing everyone seems to agree and that is the highly fragrant nature of Dactylanthus. The purpose of this is to attract the flies which carry out the fertilisation. Although when concentrated the smell has been described as a bit too much, it is generally regarded as sweet and distinctive — or as one observer wrote, “like a ripe rock melon.” Which perhaps goes to prove that a rose by any other name may indeed smell as sweet.

By

BEVERLEY McCULLOCH