West Coast Agroforestry -

March 3, 2025March 3, 2025

True European wild pear (Pyrus pyraster)

Last Friday I was searching for old and wild fruit trees in Canterbury. As usual, much of the wild fruit trees that I come across are average at best. I was happily inspecting a plum, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw an unusual fruit tree, with small, bright yellow fruits. I thought it could be a hawthorn species (Crataegus). However, when I got closer, it was clear this was no Crataegus. No, this tree was a pear, unlike anything I’d ever seen before!

The tree was very large, approximately 90cm dbh, maybe 20m tall or so. I’d estimate very roughly it’s at least 100 years old, but I’m not very good at dating trees in Canterbury (more sun, less rain and different soils than what I’m used to).

The fruits had what’s called a ‘persistent style’, i.e. the flower structure (the star shaped part) is retained on the bottom of the fruit rather than falling off.

Persistent styles on hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) fruit

I smelled the fruits, and they had a strong pear fragrance. I took a small bite. They were very tannic (i.e. lots of tannins), yet still sweet and flavourful. Some of the fruits on the floor has begun to blet (i.e. turn brown), and these ones smelled strongly like marzipan!

I did a bit of research then and there, and I was able to quickly narrow it down to high confidence this tree was Pyrus pyraster. The ‘pyraster’ part as I understand is Latin for ‘pear star’ or ‘star pear’ (aster = star, pyr = pear), and certainly the persistent style is star-shaped, so that fits well. I have visited a few Pyrus collections at various arboreta in New Zealand, and had never seen one with fruit like this before – almost all other Pyrus species in New Zealand are essentially tiny, sour nashis, so that is another clue this was something unusual that I hadn’t seen before.

As an aside it’s worth explaining what a perry pear is. Just as there are dessert apples and cider apples, there are dessert pears and cider pears. The cider variants generally have higher acid and higher tannins, as this helps to keep the flavour of the fermented drink from developing too many volatile compounds, the ones that make it smell like rotten fruit. Cider prepared from mostly dessert varieties, tends to be of low quality as a result (and unfortunately, most cider in New Zealand is made from dessert fruit…). Pear cider is traditionally called perry, and so the ‘cider pears’ are actually called perry pears. Perry pears are usually hybrids between Pyrus pyraster, and Pyrus communis.

One last special thing to note about pears and perry, is that they contain sorbitol, which is a sugar alcohol with a sweet taste (it’s sometimes used as an artificial sweetener). Sorbitol is not metabolized by yeast, so when pear juice with sorbitol is fermented, it doesn’t taste completely ‘dry’ (i.e. low sugar), because the sorbitol will provide the sweet taste. This is in contrast to apple cider, where if you ferment it a bit too far, all the sugar is gone, so it doesn’t have a sweet taste anymore.

As a massive co-incidence, earlier that very day I posted some pear fruit from a very old West Coast pear tree (also over 100 years old), to Trevor at Teepee Cider as I thought they might be tannic enough to make perry with. Perry pears are incredibly rare in New Zealand, and Trevor has been looking for them for a number of years now. Only 5 hours later after posting some possible perry pears off, here I was finding the first wild perry pear I’ve ever seen, what are the chances?

Pyrus pyraster fruits on a plate, compared to a $2 coin.

It’s probably worth mentioning that Pyrus pyraster is also considered as a subspecies of the common pear – Pyrus communis subsp. pyraster. I find this rather confusing so have avoided this name, as in my opinion it’s much easier to talk about the wild relatives with a distinct species name, e.g. Malus sieversii is the main wild ancestor of Malus domestica.

When I got home I asked the folks from EFNEX for help confirming the identification, and the replies agreed this tree was likely Pyrus pyraster. I also talked to a few New Zealand experts, but haven’t yet had a clear answer as to whether there are other known pure-ish P. pyraster in New Zealand, although they did mention there are at least a few perry pears in New Zealand. Certainly there are none on inaturalist (just one misidentified feral pear), and I didn’t find any references in a few online lists of New Zealand trees.

So the next steps are to get permission to propagate this tree, and then work on propagation via both grafting and seedlings. I believe there is a whole world of new pear varieties that inherit the wonderful features of this one, such as smaller fruit in clusters, bright yellow fruit with smooth skins (no russeting), disease resistance, and new flavours, and so it would be great to see them.

This is only part 1 of the story about this tree…. There is much more to come…

References

https://teepeecider.co.nz/blogs/cider-musings/perry-pears-in-new-zealand

January 8, 2025January 8, 2025

Wild taro in Westport

Today I happened to be driving in Westport, and I noticed out of the corner of my eye, a taro plant growing on the edges of some native bush. I stopped the car, and had a closer look. Sure enough, this is definitely edible taro (Colocasia esculenta).

This is the first time I’ve ever seen a wild taro plant on the West Coast, excluding the many black taro (Colocasia fontanesii) and the many many Alocasia brisbanensis. It’s clear from the size and condition of the corms, as well as the companion weeds nearby, that this taro patch was just ‘garden waste’ illegally dumped into the bushes.

Taro is not very common even in garden plantings on the West Coast (unlike Auckland for example). Perhaps I’ve only seen a few taro patches in all of Westport (again excluding black taro), and one patch near Fox River. I will check on the one patch I can remember in Westport to see if it’s empty, as that would likely solve the mystery of where these plants came from.

I uprooted some plants, as they looked potentially different from the taro varieties I am currently growing (although the differences in appearance may be explainable by just growing conditions). Westport does have a deep sea port as well, so there is a tiny chance for novel plants to have entered the town from far away places via sea as well.

Closeups of the wild taro found in Westport

I have become more risk averse to just introducing taro plants into my taro collection, as I suspect I brought back a minor pest from some wild Maori GP taro I collected when I visited Northland. So I decided to try a technique I learned online from Hawaiian kalo growers, which was that they wash the huli (stem cuttings with piece of corm, used for vegetatively propagating after harvest) in the sea. It may help, it may not. At least it was an excuse to head to the beach.

And lastly, I found yet another wild black taro patch in a swampy piece of paddock while exploring later in the day. It looks quite beautiful with the Canna lillies in the centre.

January 1, 2025January 1, 2025

Shipova in New Zealand

We are excited to announce that a shipova has been located in New Zealand, and will soon re-enter cultivation.

Shipova (x Pyraria irregularis, formerly x Sorbopyrus irregularis) is an incredibly unusual, intergeneric hybrid plant. It arises from a cross between a European pear (Pyrus communis) mother and a whitebeam (Aria edulis, formerly Sorbus aria) father. It is a triploid, with two chromosomes from pear and one from whitebeam.

The fruit are the size of a small pear, developing an attractive red blush on the side facing the sun. The fruit texture is creamy and a bit gritty. The taste has a rich bouquet of new flavours inherited from the whitebeam side of the family, the ripe fruit tasting very sweet with tropical fruit notes (variously described as mango, pineapple or guava). As the fruit ages, the flavours intensify and a strong marzipan (!) comes to the fore.

Full details are here: https://agroforestry.co.nz/shipova/

December 21, 2024December 25, 2024

Birth of a banana

Some time ago, a fellow kiwi was on holiday in Vietnam, near Cat Tien National Park, eating some bananas. Unusually though, inside one of the bananas were 10 seeds (the rest were seedless). She kindly posted the seeds to me. This post is about what happened when I grew them.

The bananas that were eaten in Vietnam, near Cat Tien National Park

It’s not well known, but seedless edible bananas can set seeds under certain circumstances. As a very brief primer, edible bananas are parthenocarpic, which means that fruits can be set without any pollination. This is also how seedless mandarins produce fruit.

Furthermore, edible banana varieties are often partially or almost completely sterile (which can come from male or female sterility, or both), which means that even if the flowers were successfully pollinated, no embryo would form, so no seeds. Seedless mandarins by contrast usually are female fertile, and thus can produce seeds if pollinated by fertile pollen. Hence the advice to plant seedless mandarins alone, far away from lemons and grapefruits.

The rates of viable seed set in edible bananas vary depending on the variety. Pisang Awak type [ABB] as well as Blue Java {ABB] are on the slightly fertile side. The late Roger Bodie of Gisborne bred his Wainui banana from a Pisang Awak crossed with a Blue Java.

Cavendish [AAA] is on the almost completely infertile side (horror stories of a ton of carefully hand-pollinated bananas being mushed through a sieve, one by one, to get a handful of mostly infertile seeds).

Edible banana varieties (with few exceptions) are classified as Musa × paradisiaca, which is legal to import as seed into New Zealand under the ‘Basic’ category. These seeds were legally imported via mail.

We planted the 10 seeds on the 24th July, 2023, using Tui seed raising mix (has a bit of fungicide in it, which is useful for seeds that have to sit for a very long time), and left them in the kitchen, with a bag to cover the top of the pot to hold in humidity. I fairly regularly misted the surface of the soil and the inside of the bag to keep them moist.

On about the 15th of May 2024, we noticed one seed had sprouted! A little green spike straight out of the soil. 10 months until the first one sprouted – one must be patient to sprout banana seeds. I shared this with banana expert Gabe Sachter-Smith and he mentioned that it’s very common for banana sprouts from these varieties to stall, and then die, so to not get our hopes up too high.

The green spike straight out of the potting mix

The first leaf of the banana sprout. A bit of slow release fertilizer is visible in the photo next to the plant.

Gabe also reckoned that it was mostly likely the seeds were from a Pisang Awak type (a common variety in this part of Asia, and regularly produces seeds if pollinated), pollinated by a Musa balbisiana, which are also commonly planted in villages and farms in Vietnam. The seeds and dried fruits of M. balbisiana are used medicinally, the leaves are used for wrapping food and the pseudostems are used for animal feed.

In early August, the sprout looked like this. It’s not just the lighting, it was actually yellowish. I used the ‘twang’ test to determine that it had essentially no roots at this time (lightly twang the plant, and if it vibrates, it’s rooted, if it just shifts in the direction of the twang, it has few/no roots). Another seed had also sprouted as well (barely visible in the photo, since deceased).

By November, the seedling seems to have cleared the danger zone (where it is still relying on stored energy from the seed rather than its own roots), and was now firmly rooted and growing faster. The other seed that had sprouted had since died, however another had sprouted (still alive as of posting, although minuscule in size and not yet passed the danger zone)

By now, I also noticed that the leaves were quite thick, compared to my diploid banana plants (e.g. Musa yunnanensis, which I will write a post about soon), and more in line with the thickness of some Dwarf Cavendish plants. Without getting too deep into the details, this could be a sign of the plant having higher ploidy levels (i.e. it could be triploid or tetraploid). Pisang Awak itself is triploid, and it can often produce triploid or tetraploid offspring, as well as diploid.

By late December 2024, the seedling looked like this:

It had started to gain a lot of red pigmentation around the petioles and pseudostem, presumably from the increased sunlight. There is a waxy coat on the undersides of the leaf, and it doesn’t currently look like the petiole canal will close up. I’m no banana expert, but it looks to me like it has more acuminata genes than balbisiana. It looks a bit like a Jamaican Red. We shall see.

So long as the plant inherits genes for parthenocarpy (ability to produce fruits without pollination), it should produce edible fruit (if it is tetraploid, it is guaranteed to have these genes from the mother). I won’t be upset if the plant is fully female fertile (=sets seeds if pollinated), as quite often most banana growers in New Zealand chop off the male part of the flower (the bell) anyway, so it’s unlikely there’ll be much banana pollen being transported around by bees, and even if there are seeds, it’s useful for further breeding.

With luck it could be a new edible banana variety for New Zealand. There is still a lot of work to do to trial this banana outside and see if it can grow and fruit successfully, but this is a great first step.

References

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/5193495/Bodles-bent-could-make-NZ-the-top-banana

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/building-a-better-banana-70543194

March 10, 2024March 10, 2024

Our first bunch of bananas!

So we finally harvested our first banana bunch back at the end of January.

This particular bunch didn’t receive any special treatment at all. No frost protection, no artificial fertilizers or sprays (just mulch, chop and drop, household compost, occasional horse poo bag), and we didn’t bag the fruit either (helps prevent damage to the fruit from sun, cold and birds). We wanted to set a benchmark for what an outdoor grown banana bunch would look like in coastal Buller, with just good site selection (sheltered from wind and full day sun from mid-morning onwards) and well prepared soil.

There’s plenty of improvements we will try next time, such as we have barrels of fermented weeds up next to the banana patch that we can pour on during dry weeks (last year we missed a lot of good growing weather because we couldn’t easily water the bananas up there). Already I can tell this fermented weed tea has made the banana patch grow almost twice as fast. Similarly we will try with a banana bag as well to see how that affects the fruit.

The banana patch was was planted in late 2020, and are NZ Misi Luki variety.

I think the flower formed about last May or so, so about 8 months or so to ripen. Some of the bananas are cracked (they were still half edible), but most fruit are in good shape.

The fruits when they ripened were sweet (although not as sweet as other New Zealand bananas we’ve tried) and had a very dense texture, more so than other New Zealand grown bananas I’ve tasted. Crucially, there was no woody core (the inside of the fruit goes hard like a stick), which was something we were concerned about as cold weather is generally considered a risk factor.

The back side of the banana bunch, showing no blemishes

The front side of the banana bunch, showing rather bad cracking of the fruit

A plate of our banana fruit that are now ripe, showing the inside of the fruit.

August 8, 2023August 8, 2023

Torreya californica taste test

So here’s a little post about eating Torreya californica seeds.

Torreya (aka ‘nutmeg yews’) is a small genus of conifers native to Asia (mostly China and Japan) and the United States. All Torreya seeds are highly edible and species such as Torreya grandis have been cultivated in China for at least 1500 years (!) for their edible nuts.

Torreya nucifera has a similar long history of cultivation in Japan, and the wood is highly sought after for traditional uses.

Torreya taxifolia is “native” (it’s functionally almost extinct there) to Florida and is one of the most interesting case studies in glacial relict species. It is able to reproduce with ease 500km to 1000km North, and so makes a strong case for assisted migration.

Unusually for a conifer, Torreya seed is produced singly per fruit, and ranges from 2cm to 4cm long. For the kiwis, it looks a bit like a miro (Prumnopitys ferruginea) fruit, which is also a conifer that produces a single-seeded “fruit”. Torreya fruits turn from green to purple when ripe.

All Torreya are slow growing evergreen trees, and thus are an investment in time to grow. However they are very pleasing trees with beautiful foliage.

Torreya californica is as the name suggests, is native to California. It’s a rare tree there, isolated to a few mountain refuges. The seeds are about 3cm to 4cm long.

In New Zealand, Torreya are very rare trees. There are perhaps less than 10-20 fruiting specimens in the whole country (even that might be a great over exaggeration). I was able to locate a small planting of mature Torreya californica thanks to a tip-off from a friend, and hiding in the weeds underneath was a number of well-preserved seeds. Hopefully these will become many healthy saplings in time.

Two 100+ year old *Torreya californica* in New Zealand

I could not find any written articles on the internet describing how to eat Torreya nuts, and what they taste like, despite many sources saying that they’re delicious and edible, so that’s what I have done here. The majority of the seeds I collected I have sown, but in order to get people to want to grow these seedlings, some seeds had to be sacrificed to produce this taste report.

So first of all, I lightly cracked a few seeds by hitting them with a rock while they rested on the concrete . The shells cracked rather easily. I took these inside and put them on a plate, and then using a butter-knife, I prised apart the shell fragments.

Cracked open *T. californica* seeds. These ones are slightly over 3cm long, but these were the smallest nuts as I chose the biggest ones for planting.

I was at first concerned that the seeds were rotten after a year outside, but then remembered they have very long viability (3+ years outside), and so they should be okay. I found a photo of a freshly chopped Torreya taxifolia which confirms the brown edge is present on fresh seeds:

Photo of chopped *Torreya taxifolia* seeds reproduced without permission from Torreya Guardians

Then I chopped the Torreya nut pieces into slivers. I ate a few raw to sample the taste. The raw taste was not particularly impressive. It was a bit gritty, reminding me of shredded coconut without the coconut overtones. Occasionally an earthy flavour was present (likely stronger because the seeds were at least a year old). There wasn’t too much flavour to the inside, but I could tell it was oily by the mouthfeel. There was a very subtle piny taste sometimes, but barely there (again maybe because these seeds were a year old, the flavour was muted).

The rest of the slivers I dry-fried in a pan. I did accidentally burn them a little bit in my excitement, but the flavour on the bigger pieces was definitely much improved.

Now the gritty texture was gone, and it was replaced with a classic toasted nut flavour, an undertone of toasted pine nut and the earthy flavour had completely blended into the toasted nut flavour. The texture was much smoother as well. Much more enjoyable, and would eat again, especially given how easy they were to process because of their large size.

In conclusion, Torreya californica nuts are large, easy to open and process by hand, and once cooked have a delicious nutty flavour with an undertone of roasted pine nuts.

If you have gotten this far, then I am always interested in buying/trading for more Torreya seeds from readers, and plants will be available from the nursery in the future 🙂

June 5, 2023June 5, 2023

On The Trail of Taro

Finally have been able to source a copy of Peter Matthews book On the Trail of Taro. Peter was one of the first to study the Maori taros of New Zealand over 40 years ago and is still studying taro and its interaction with culture to this day. A true legend in the field of taro.

I’ve said before that it’s often a slow process for ideas from science to make their way into gardening knowledge, and so hopefully once I’ve read the book I will have some important information to bring back.

The book is sitting next to a purple-stem (pink-fleshed?) pointed-leaf Samoan cultivar (top left), Xanthosoma (top right mostly out of frame), unknown RP type cultivar (top right just above book), and a small Maori RR variety (far left). We’re currently growing over 10 taro type species and varieties (with a few more to source remaining) and will beginning taste tests once we have enough plant material.

On the Trail of Taro book next to some taro plants

September 18, 2022September 19, 2022

Spring 2022 Update

Well it has been some time since our last update, so I thought it’s time to write a new one.

It has been a very busy Winter. Unfortunately my time in the nursery and garden has been severely curtailed for many months, as I had to spend almost all spare days lining a 50 metre drain with rocks (there was too much erosion of our sandy/silty soil during heavy rain events). Thanks to Finn, the first course is almost done, and the drain will just need a few more loads of rocks to be good for Summer. Hopefully the plants next to the drain will have grown enough to assist too. Unfortunately the Summer also looks to be extremely busy – so it will be difficult to catch up on chores.

The plants are in general doing quite well, although as usual the wekas have found new ways to kill plants. Some surprising / interesting results were:

Black sapote (Diospyros digyna). A few of these are alive and with leaves on, unprotected and outside the entire time (for some of them, this was their 2nd Winter). This is a pretty exciting result, as black sapote are not known to be this tough or grow this far South.
Our two “gold velvet” ice-cream beans (Inga sp.) (sourced from Northland) kept all leaves on (the one next to the metal fence at our rental actually grew significantly over Winter). All other Inga (the common so-called I. edulis) were majorly or fully defoliated (even though it was their 2nd Winter). This is a surprising result, as after the first few months the “gold velvet” ice cream beans were looking extremely poorly and needed urgent care – we thought they were definitely more tropical than the standard ice cream beans.
Some of our yangmei (Myrica rubra) plants again continue to grow rapidly during Winter. We’re very excited to try and get them to fruiting age. The biggest one has kept pace with the Acacia melanoxylons in the nearby pots – a scarcely believable feat.
Musa velutina here for its 2nd Winter did pretty badly. The first Winter it did have very sandy soil, and it was repotted soon before the 2nd Winter – so it could just be soil issues, but we’re surprised it wasn’t hardier. Musa sikkimensis in the same spot did fine and also started growing a few weeks ago. I haven’t paid much attention to the other bananas, but the Pisang Awak patch is looking a bit sad after Winter. It is in a wetter spot than the Misi Luki, so maybe that’s why – or maybe it’s just that it was the first Winter planted out and they have a lot of root growth to do.
Zutano avocado was the fastest grower – having grown a bit over Winter. The Mexicola Grande was partially undug by wekas, and so may have lost a bit of growth as a result – it is also in a much shadier spot, so that doesn’t help.
Rainbow valley papaya has grown extremely well, despite the fact it’s in partial shade.
Yellow jaboticaba (Myrciaria glazioviana) has been one of the top jaboticaba to survive outside over Winter. Almost all of them are still alive. The related Eugenia pyriformis (uvalha) also survived with ease, as did the Surinam cherries (Eugenia uniflora). The large leaf jaboticaba also has done well, as have some Sabara jaboticaba seedlings. A few red hybrid jaboticaba are doing okay too. Most Grimal seedlings have disappeared however – they don’t seem to have been as hardy.
Kusaie lime (rangpur) seedlings are looking very healthy and easily kept all their leaves on over Winter. Kusaie lime is used as a rootstock overseas, and we’re trialling it as part of of our search for an evergreen Citrus rootstock (trifoliata grows a bit too slowly on the West Coast as it has a very long dormancy period). We also received a few C35 citranges a few months ago (hybrid between an orange and trifoliata) rootstocks and they kept all of their leaves over Winter and some even started growing a few weeks ago.
Black apple (Pouteria australis) also kept all of their leaves and looked fine. Diploglottis in the same spot lost all of its leaves.
Red mountain pineapple (Ananas bracteatus) was hit or miss. Some plants are verdant and healthy, others are almost dead (it has been an extremely wet Winter). We did source plants from many different places so maybe there’s a bit of genetic difference about.
Pouzolzia australis was totally fine and didn’t lose any leaves (it actually grew a bit). It’s a bit too fibrous so might not be a good edible – but maybe if we try grow it in deep shade the leaves will be softer(?). Our parataniwha (Elatostema rugosa) patch however did very well and is either flowering or fruiting right now. Both of these are New Zealand native members of Urticaceae (nettles) which are generally edible. The Australian Elatostema reticulatum is even called rainforest spinach!
Grafted green sapote (Pouteria viridis) went outside a few weeks ago and seems to have ever so slightly started growing.

In terms of our quest for the best, always-growing herbaceous plant (that can deal with damp soil) we also have some results:

Abyssinian banana (Ensete ventricosum) is probably the winner. It was already growing back in early August, after maybe 4-6 weeks of stopped growth. It grows with a dense root system in poor soils, and doesn’t let hardly any nutrients escape. It’s easily mulched and theoretically is edible (the root is very starchy). Hard to beat.
In 2nd place is possibly Mexican kava (Piper auritum) – which also grew significantly over Winter, and has the added bonus of being edible. It grows in relatively thick shade for us.
We’re also trialling a lot of different taros and related aroids. Japanese taro has grown over Winter despite the partial shade it’s in, and looks good. It does however seem to be a target for weka attacks. One of the other better ones has been bạc hà white taro (Colocasia gigantea, syn. Leucocasia). This began growing towards the end of August for us, and it’s also supposedly edible.
Canna edulis has done pretty poorly in many cases. The plants are still very small however, so maybe as they become larger and have more dead foliage to protect from cold they will grow better. Certainly the ornamental Canna grown locally in big patches are quite tough plants so maybe it’s the size.
Pretty much all of our gingers have defoliated other than white butterfly ginger (Hedychium coronarium) – which grew well the past few months and dwarf cardamom (Alpinia nutans; I didn’t check to see how it grew over Winter yet). Some of them might do better as they came to us a bit poorly and small (e.g. Alpinia caerulea). Myoga ginger (Zingiber mioga) sent up shoots this week, but this is a bit slow compared to the other plants above.

July 13, 2022July 14, 2022

Plant Detective Case 1: Malva assurgentiflora

It’s been a productive few months for plant detective work, something that not all readers may be aware I spend a lot of time on. This might sound like something that isn’t an important job, but I would argue it’s very important for agroforestry in such a climate as the West Coast, where there just aren’t that many safe choices. That work to find more safe choices hasn’t been done yet, and we can’t just copy other regions, as e.g. what might be a safe choice in Canterbury such as apricots, might not work at all on the West Coast (apricots indeed do very poorly on the West coast). There are also a lot of plants that don’t seem to do particularly well in other areas of New Zealand that do extremely well on the West Coast (e.g. yangmei is growing very fast for us with very healthy dark green growth), and trialing is really the best way to find these things out.

In the interests of finding ‘new’, highly suited plants for our unusual climate, I have to track down plants that may be in New Zealand, but are very rare. Usually these plants are not in active cultivation. Sometimes it’s possible to re-import these plants as seeds, and sometimes it isn’t (in which case tracking it down becomes a lot more important as there isn’t a usable pathway to legally add new species to import into New Zealand). There are enough ‘cases’ worth of investigation here to fill a series of posts, so we’ll give it a go.

First in the spotlight is Island mallow (Malva assurgentiflora). Before I discuss this plant, let’s just look at it:

Stunning, isn’t it? Island mallow (Malva assurgentiflora, formerly Lavatera assurgentiflora) is a beautiful plant in the Malvaceae family. A large percentage of this family is edible as leaf and flower crops (abutilon, hibiscus, hollyhock, linden, okra – to name a few). They’re often very beautiful as well. I’ve been expanding the number of species from this family we’re growing as a result. The concept of growing edible ornamentals is sometimes called ‘edimentals‘ – something the brilliant Stephen Barstow came up with. Abutilons are definitely ‘edimental’, and grow very well for us, but their flowers are the real crop – the leaves are a bit too fibrous. Would be nice to have much more edimentals (these are a great ‘gateway’ to getting more people to grow edible plants), so that’s one area we’re actively researching.

One of the ways in which I look for new plants is to look at particular climates that match well with the New Zealand climate. For example, some parts of Eastern Australia, Western Chile, Western United Kingdom, Western United States & Canada are fairly similar to the current climate of the West Coast of New Zealand. However, this is a rather surface level analysis. To look deeper, we need to consider that plants (in general) haven’t evolved much at all and haven’t moved too far within the last (e.g.) 100,000 years – but within that timeframe they have passed through ice ages (also see this relevant xkcd). As a result, to find suitable plants, we don’t consider just the current climate the plant is located in, but also the previous climates the plant has been through. Some ‘desert’ plants for example are really just forest plants that became stuck and had to adapt over a long period (millions of years) to desert life, and they still contain within them the genes to succeed in a wetter environment (e.g. carob – which grows very well on the West Coast surprisingly). Some plants that are found in tropical environments are also stuck there and do much better in places that are much cooler (bunya, Torreya taxifolia). This is such a crucial and important concept that I will be writing at least another whole article on this subject – stay tuned.

So to get back to the chase, I have been looking for these plants that are adapted to a wetter & cooler climate, but are perhaps trapped in some place unsuitable. One place I looked to find interesting plants is the Channel islands. No, not the Channel Islands in the English Channel, but the Channel Islands off the coast of California (did you know California has islands?). Coastal California is home to some of the most successful exotic species that grow in New Zealand, and what’s more – these plants are now rather poorly adapted to California and are often endangered to some degree. It’s hard to believe, but Pinus radiata is one such species – in California it is endangered – in New Zealand it’s one of the most invasive exotic species that we have. Macrocarpa (Cupressus macrocarpa) is considered vulnerable in California yet grows incredibly well in New Zealand (cypress canker notwithstanding). Coast redwood – similar story. Notice a pattern? Endangered plants in coastal California, are often highly adapted to New Zealand conditions, because they’re actually wanting to grow in a cooler & wetter climate and did so for hundreds of thousands of years (at least), but have become ‘trapped’ in a rapidly desertifying California.

So on the Channel islands, off the coast of California we have a look for interesting species. Malva assurgentiflora pops out as one interesting plant on the list – and it’s ‘Critically Imperiled’ in habitat. Pretty much every Malva species is edible, so that’s a given. It definitely looks very beautiful in photos. The next step is to see if this species can be imported or otherwise exists in New Zealand. Well it turns out that not only does it exist, but it has escaped cultivation and is growing in coastal Christchurch! This is exactly what we predicted from the patterns we identified from semi-endangered coastal California plants – that it would be well suited to New Zealand conditions. There don’t seem to be any nurseries selling plants, so it’s off to search for Island mallow it is (I could’ve imported seeds in this specific case, but that’s not as fun of a story, is it).

The next stage in the story is to try and track down these Island mallows somewhere in Christchurch. With Caleb B, we were able to locate the patch quite rapidly:

*Malva assurgentiflora* growing outside in Christchurch

*Malva assurgentiflora* outside in Christchurch

Having located it, it was time for the taste test. As I mentioned, since it’s a Malva, it’s practically guaranteed to be edible, so I had no concerns. The flower was the first thing I tasted. Hmm, it wasn’t sweet like an abutilon and was also a lot chewier, and definitely not that good (not worth coming all the way for!). Hmmm… well better taste the leaf then… wow! It’s delicious!

The leaf was far tastier than the flower, being slightly crunchy (possibly an adaptation to store water in a drier environment?) and with a distinct lack of fibres (unlike abutilons). They tasted very nice and were possibly even a little sweet. They are probably among the best tasting of all Malvaceae leaves I have tasted, and may even take the top spot.

Rumours of this plant escaping cultivation are highly exaggerated however. Both patches we found were very near to older cultivated gardens, and there was practically no seedling regeneration at all (I found only 3 seedlings in total). The few plants we found were extremely healthy though, large sprawling shrubs with bright green leaves and no sign of damage (nothing from salt, cold or insects). These plants had clearly been living for a few years – Island mallow is a longer term perennial unlike some of the other Malva species commonly found in New Zealand which tend to die after a few years. What was self-seeding profusely was Malva arborea, which grew within a 1 metre distance and had dozens to hundreds of seedlings, but by contrast all of these M. arborea seedlings had yellow leaves with fungal infections.

Well, we gathered some seeds of Island mallow. Possibly I have already germinated a few dozen already, but I’m not 100% certain yet as the soil I put the seeds into while collecting would’ve contained many other weed seeds.

It still remains to be seen how Island mallow would grow on the West Coast, so the story is definitely not over yet. But that will be a later update. Plenty more plant detective stories to come 🙂

May 7, 2022May 7, 2022

Red banana passionfruit (Passiflora antioquiensis) first flowering for us

Another view. ‘Keith’ (that’s his name) the Abyssinian banana behind the tree at the back.

Actually the 3rd and 4th flowers this year, as I missed photographing the other two. Hopefully the fruit will be ripe next season 🙂

The other name for this passionfruit is ‘red vanilla passionfruit’, but it’s a bit of a misnomer. Fruit don’t taste like vanilla, and the flowers don’t really have that scent either even if you squint your nose. There is a ‘true’ vanilla-scented passionfruit (also edible, though smaller fruit) though – Passiflora capsularis, which we hope to grow soon (we have a few sprouts)