The Tutu. Commonly called Toot. / The Rata. In Flower. Plate 14. From the book: Illustrations to ...

1 - The accompanying text reads: This shrub grows to the height of six or seven feet in the open country. Cattle are often poisoned by eating too freely of the plant. The seeds of the little berries which succeed this flower are highly poisonous; but the Natives make a wine from the berries, carefully straining the juice from the seeds. This wine is very sickly in taste.

2 - The accompanying text reads: This is the monarch of the New Zealand forest, generally as large as the largest English oaks. It is originally a parasite, winding several coils round other trees until it has killed them and taken their place. The dead tree gradually rots, thus leaving the trunk of the rata hollow. In the end of the summer, each twig is covered with this flower, so that the whole forest bears a crimson tinge. This tree resembles the oak in its gnarled limbs, and is therefore much sought after by ship-builders for the knees and timbers of their vessels.