Live and learn (3)

 

Live and learn (3)

                                            Tawa 

                                    Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons 

 Two words this week, both relating to New Zealand.

Tawa (Beilschmiedia tawa) is a tall evergreen tree in the laurel family. It bears sprays of pale green flowers which develop large, purple fruits resembling damsons or plums. 

Tawa fruit 

Image source

The fruit can be eaten, but is said to taste of turpentine! The stones, or kernels, can be roasted for food, and the bark used to produce a drink.

The timber is widely used for furniture and flooring.

Tawa 
Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons 

Tawa is also the South Asian name for a large, flat, circular griddle, used to cook chapattis and other flatbreads, and for frying meat, or paneer (often called ‘Indian cottage cheese’)

Weta 
Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons 

The second word is weta. Weta is a large, flightless brown insect in a group of about one hundred species in the grasshopper family. It is mainly nocturnal and omnivorous, often scavenging, though the giant and tree weta feed on lichens, leaves and fruit.   

It is native to New Zealand, and has few natural predators but has fallen foul of introduced mammals. Consequently, some weta species are now considered critically endangered.