The Tataramoa (_Rubus Australis_) is equally well-known under the designation of "bush-lawyer." Its stems are flexile, and more like rope than cane, but every part of the plant is fibrous and very strong. It grows in much the same manner as supple-jack, but is luckily not quite so plentiful. It rejoices in abundant foliage, and each leaf is armed with hooked thorns, which lay hold of anything attempting to brush past them. Hence the name; for it is needful to disengage each particular thorn with care and circumspection. There is no pulling away from a bush-lawyer, unless one is prepared to leave clothes and skin hanging on the bush, so tenacious is its hold. The plant belongs to the bramble tribe, and has a white flower and a red berry.
The Mounga-mounga (_Lygodium articulatum_) is the delight of persons camping out. It has a stem like small twine, which depends from the trees in immense bundles of spiral coils. Bunches of it make capital bedding, being, in fact, a natural spring-mattress.
The Tupakihi (_Coriaria ruscifolia_) is a shrub growing chiefly on poor open land. The whole plant is highly astringent, but is also said to contain a narcotic principle. Cattle occasionally eat it, and get poisoned. It bears bunches of juicy berries which are wholesome to eat, but upon them is a seed that is dangerously full of the poisonous principle. The beverage called tutu, which the old Maori esteemed, was made from the berries of this plant. When it was boiled with a certain seaweed (_Porphyra_) a nutritious jelly was formed. Tutu was probably not universally known among the Maori, but only to certain tribes. It appears to have been intoxicating, for warriors who required a "drop of somethink short" were accustomed to imbibe it on the eve of battle.
New Zealand is well-known to be a great place for ferns. They exist in incredible profusion everywhere. Botanists have enumerated a hundred and thirty indigenous species, of which some forty are peculiar to the country. We are always sending roots, seeds, and dried species home, but I cannot attempt to catalogue them. Several kinds resembling that beautifully delicate fern called the maidenhair are among our commonest species. Their luxuriance is astonishing. They cover acres and acres of ground in the bush, and come up to one's waist and armpits.