A Curious Weed

Horowhenua Chronicle, 18 December 1913, Page 4

A Curious Weed

SENDS HORSES R&YING MAD. The Westport Times gives an account of a curious experience which befel a horseman in the bush 011 the West Coast recently, and one which fortunately is not likely to overtake a traveller in Canterbury, although the plant mentioned in the story is found on the Port Hills and elsewhere where bush once grew in this province. "All Avent well," runs the narrative, "until a stage was reached forty miles beyond Karainea (the rider was going from Cape Foul wind to Collnigwood). There the horse suddenly went mad. It performed all sorts of wild evolutions in a dangerous locality, and when Mr Walker dismounted attacked him so desperately that he was compelled to take refuge for some time in a tree. After giving the owner a very lively time the animal reached the beach, charged into the sea and was drowned. The only way Mr Walker can account for the extraordinary ciiange in the horse is that it was driven insane by stinging nettles, with which the bridle path was covered." This story may seem highly-col-oured, but no bush traveller, who has ever encountered the unpleasant plant described in Mr Walker's narrative will doubt its malignant qualities. The stinging nettle mentioned is evidently the native ongaonga, a member of the urtica tribe, and, although it is not very widely distributed, it has a habit of springing up on new bush tracks in a fashion that is ex tremely annoying, and often dangerous to men and beasts. The ongaonga is a harmlesslooking, rather pretty shrub growin to a ■ height of about ten feet. The under-side of the leaf is thickly set with tiny hair-like spines which contain a poison of a highly irritating character. These fine I prickles penetrate the skin of a | horse, as well as that of the more sensitive human being, and upon ■ some animals they have a particularly painful effect. The ongaonga is more often found in the Iving Country bush and in the Taranaki back country than anywhere else in New Zealand. A railway route exploring expedition, which'travelled through the bush from the Waikato to Stratford, in Taranaki, some twenty years ago, had a memorable encounter with the Maori nettle, as it is called by surveyors and settlers. The party, which included three members of Parliament, three surveyors, a journalist and a Maori buslinian, found themselves in the middle of a thicket of ongaonga one day in the Ohura Valley. The poisonous spines caught the horses about wither high, and the animals' chests and legs began to swell in an alarming fashion. The two packhorses suffered most. They literally went mad with the pain, and, just as described in the West Coast story, they performed a variety of strange evolutions, and oven revolutions. One of them tried to climb a tree, and others rolled 011 the ground in agony in an attempt to rid themselves of their mysterious tormentors. One dashed off to the nearest creek, in which it lay down and drowned itself. Another was killed in the bush in its crazy scrambles. Alt ihe members of the party were badly stung by the plant, and one was so . ill that a halt had to be called for half a day while the white and Maori explorers experimented with such ongaonga poison cures as their bushcraft suggested. The poison affected all the travellers for some days.-- Christchurch Star.