Karaka trees

I live nearby Basque park, one of the many small parks littered around Auckland. People usually go there to walk their dogs, water their kids and sunbathe. There's a nice artistic fountain sculpture water feature thing in the center. And there's also this sign.



Interestingly it mentions how the area was known for its karaka trees, which the maori would harvest the fruit from. Sounds quite nice.



Hey, here's a fruit laden karaka tree in front of an apartment.



They're all over the place. There's an old one in a dog exercise area up Mount Eden. They are in front yards of houses.



Very tempting.. but wait!? WTF?

Eating the untreated kernel causes severe muscle cramps that can even rip the muscles off the bone

They don't mention that on the sign, do they? This pdf document gives a pretty good overview about the tree and its fruit.

Foraging nearby

Ever since I first watched the River Cottage television shows with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, I have liked the idea of foraging for food.

A wild fennel plant growing in my backyard:



Several plants in an empty lot down the road:



In this photo there is a giant fennel plant. And below it some kind of berryfruit plant, probably blackberry. Not sure I would bother with the berries though, as this particlar place is where all the rubbish that blows down hill tends to end up. When the time comes I'm thinking of harvesting the fennel seeds and drying them. There are enough wild fennel plants nearby to make it worth my while, for personal use at least.

Foraging isn't without its dangers though. There's the warnings against roadside foraging, which would be the case for the plants shown in the second photo. This is due to heavy metals from car exhausts and street run-off. Then there is the danger of plant misidentification, for fennel for instance, it is common to read warnings against mistaking it with poisonous hemlock. Although as far as I can tell, that seems to be scaremongering which is copied and pasted as people read it elsewhere and write about it on their own web page or blog post.