1 82 A NEW ZEALAND NATURALIST'S CALENDAR. 



are completely hermaphrodite and others which are dioe- 

 cious. In the latter the male flowers have twelve stamens 

 in four groups of three each, and have no trace of a pistil. 

 The most complete female flowers have a four-celled ovary 

 but no trace of stamens. Hermaphrodite flowers also 

 occur with twelve stamens and a four-celled ovary, and 

 between these extremes every gradation may be met with, 

 sometimes even on the same plant. The flowers are pro- 

 duced in great numbers, the male particularly, so that the 

 bushes are bright red with them. They have no perceptible 

 fragrance and no nectar, and the pollen is of so light and 

 dusty a nature that I think they are tending to be wind- 

 fertilised, though no doubt insects have a share in this 

 work. I have often shaken small beetles out of the flower 

 clusters, and as these are mainly pollen-feeders they no 

 doubt help in the work of inter-pollination. 



There is another species of Arlstotelia (A. fruticosa) 

 common in gullies and sheltered ground in the upper and 

 inland parts of Otago, and found on the slopes of Swampy 

 Hill, above the Leith Valley. This is one of those variable 

 forms of plants which appears to me to be undergoing 

 modification into two or more distinct species. It has 

 all its parts much reduced as compared with the other 

 species, and the extreme forms are very different from one 

 another one forming an erect bush, and the other being 

 a low-growing tortuously - branched small -leaved plant 

 with its clusters of blossoms sometimes reduced to single 

 flowers. 



The Maoris used to eat the berries of mako-mako in 

 olden times. Another curious and notable thing about 

 these plants is that whenever a piece of bush land is 

 cleared of big trees Aristotelia is among the first to appear 

 and form a grove of small trees. 



All three kinds of tutu* usually commence to flower 

 in October. Everyone in New Zealand knows, or ought 

 to know, the common tutu (Coruiria ruscifolia), but the 

 smaller species grow in higher country, and about Dunedin 

 one must go up to the slopes of Swampy Hill, to a height 



* See p. 27. 



