Aotearoa in Bloom by Rachel Clare and Tryphena Cracknell

Aotearoa in Bloom,’ by Rachel Clare and Tryphena Cracknell (Rongomaiwahine) is an enchanting new book about our native flowering plants and trees, their history, culture, and practical uses.

Floor van Lierop has beautifully designed the book. The elegant cream cloth cover features a red flowering Ngutukaka/kaka beak, a special taonga. Red was the colour of prestige in Māori society and was the colour all chiefs wore.

Aotearoa in Bloom is printed on quality paper, which makes it a pleasure to hold and to leaf through. It is exquisitely illustrated. The many full-page reproductions of flower paintings by early New Zealand botanical painters, including Sarah Featon, Emily Cumming Harris and Martha King, are especially stunning. And they deserve a place in this book not just for their beauty but also for the great care these pioneering women artists took to accurately record each specimen.

Reading this book was like being invited to join a fascinating botanical journey through the various landscapes of Aotearoa by two deeply knowledgeable guides, keen to show us their favourite native and endemic flowering plants. For every flower-He puawai, he kōrero- there is a story and they tell these so well,

It came as a surprise to learn just what a floriferous country we are. In their introduction, they write that out of our 2400 native plant species (out of which 80 per cent grow nowhere else in the world), 2071 of them produce flowers. Obviously, far too many flowering plants to fit into this book, so they have picked personal favourites that they felt they had a connection to, as well as plants they knew little about until they started researching for this book and became intrigued by them. They also wanted to choose ones from different environments, including mountains, forests, scrubland, and rocky places and by rivers, streams, swamps, and beaches.

Each flowering plant has its own chapter with a catchy heading to entice the reader to read on and find out more, such as: 

Whau: Prickly individual.

Purita/Mistletoe: A love story

Kumarahau: Take your medicine.

Rengarenga: A cast iron constitution.

Marlborough/rock daisy: Fashion meets practicality.

And most intriguing of all:

Horokaka/ice plant-succulent pig of the rocky shore.

Each chapter is filled with fascinating stories about the history and uses of a particular flowering plant. Be prepared to be surprised and delighted. Who knew that the largest buttercups in the world can be found right here in Aotearoa? Or who could fail to be enchanted by our native clematis with its glorious clusters of white star-shaped blossoms? What I found especially interesting were the descriptions of the cultural significance of our flowering plants and trees in te ao Māori. Māori used them in so many ways for rōngoa Māori, rites and ceremonies, food harvesting and cuisine, and personal and household scents. One plant frequently had multiple uses, e.g. it would be hard to find a task that Tī Kōuka, the cabbage tree, was not up to. They list its many uses for rongoā rākau medicine, the creation of various kinds of apparel, and for kai.

Included in each chapter are two sections. The first is called ‘What’s in a name?’ Māori were the first to name our native plants, and their reason for naming them is provided in this section, as well as the origins of their most common English names and Latin ‘scientific’ names.

The second, ‘The gardening section’, is a useful short guide on the kinds of conditions a plant will thrive in, how to care for it, and where to source it.

At the end of the book, there is a chapter called ‘Propagation tips’, and in here, they give some excellent pointers on how flowering plants can be propagated in three different ways via seeds, layering, or cuttings. And finally, a useful chapter which lists the right plant for the right places for those looking for a native plant for a particular spot or with a notable feature.

What is gravely concerning is that so many of Aotearoa’s precious native and endemic flowering plants are at risk. They need our help and our voices so they will still be around for future generations. The writers exhort us to cultivate our own relationship with these special plants that are part of our whenua. ‘Grow them in your garden, go on excursions to see them in nature. Embrace a gardening aesthetic that is full ngahere bush or mingle them with favourite introduced plants.’

Seeing pictures of how entrancing these plants are in this book and reading the many captivating stories about them are bound to encourage readers to do that. I think Aotearoa in Bloom is a taonga that would make a wonderful gift for anyone interested in our natural environment, especially those with green fingers.

Reviewer: Lyn Potter 

Harper Collins NZ