19G PLANTS OP NEW ZEALAND 



Genus Btihus. 



Scrambling, thorny shrubs, with alternate leaves, often palmately divided. 

 Calyx 5-lobed, petals 5, stamens many. Fruit a cluster of fleshy drupes, on a 

 cone-shaped receptacle. New Zealand species dicBcious. (Name from the Latin 

 for a Bramble.) 4 sp. 



The New Zealand Bramble is of the same tribe as the 

 raspberry and the blackberry, though its fruits are not so 

 fine. Its twining stems and hooked prickles form one of 

 the chief obstructions to a journey through the bush. 

 These hooks are so placed as to allow the plant to slip easily 

 up any support, though they will not permit it to be dragged 

 down. The centre of the female flower is filled with carpels, 

 each one of which develops in the autumn into a small red or 

 yellow fruit. The aggregate of these little fruits forms the 

 berry, which is pleasant to the taste, and is often made by 

 settlers into a preserve. A sweet juice, which drops freely 

 from the cut stems, is drunk by bushmen when thirsty. The 

 native name, Tataramoa, signifies a heap of prickles. The 

 Maoris have also bestowed this name upon the English furze, 

 and upon brambles generally. 



The New Zealand species of Riibus do not present the 

 bewildering variety of form that is found in the genus in 

 Central Europe ; but they nevertheless add considerably to 

 the perplexities of the local botanist. Nor have these 

 perplexities been reduced by the carelessness of various 

 writers on New Zealand plants. Thus A. R. Wallace" tells us 

 that "In New Zealand the prickly Bithus is a leafless trailing 

 plant, and its prickles are probably a protection against the 

 large snails of the country, several of which have shells from 

 two to three and a half inches long." Such an error could 

 scarcely have been made by anyone familiar with the natural 

 history of the country. Bubus is one of the commonest 

 species on the edge of the forest ; and the snails referred to 

 belong to rare and disappearing species — rarely, if ever, found 



*" Darwinism," Colonial Edition, p. 433. 



