YOU PROBABLY WON’T have noticed kakabeak unless you’ve seen it in flower. Only then does the small, green, shrub live up to its name, with its bright red or white flowers, the size and shape of a kaka’s beak. Even if you have noticed this plant, that’s probably been in a domestic garden, rather than in the wild, because it’s critically endangered.
Maori know the plant as kowhai ngutukaka, and in the past ate its seedpods. Its easily transported small black seeds meant the plant was often traded around the country, so its original natural distribution remains uncertain. But it once grew in Northland, Auckland, Great Barrier Island, Coromandel, around Lake Waikaremoana, the East Cape and Hawke’s Bay, and still survives in a few of these areas.
Unfortunately, the endemic…
