Eleanor Cooper

“The intriguing lifecycles of the pūriri moth, Chinese tree privet, tree wētā and bracket fungus”

Spliced ropes, herbicide marker dye, dyes from lichens, bark, berries and flowers

Along the riverbanks of this city, stands of Chinese tree privet emanate clouds of pollen and candied scent. Due to their habit of crowding out native mid-canopy trees, restoration groups sometimes fell and poison clutches of privet, gradually planting kānuka, pūriri and whauwhaupaku in their place.

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Within the clouds of candied scent, smooth trunks and boughs of tree privet bear diamond-shaped scars. Some diamonds are veiled in silk, like band-aids, disguising grubs which dwell inside, their tunnels lacing the woody interior of the trees. For five whole years the grubs live concealed, before eventually trading their loose folds of caterpillar skin for the dusty wings of a pūriri moth. Then, pressing through the silk that has protected them from centipedes, birds and wasps, they emerge. Over the following 48 hours, the moth finds a mate, scatters eggs into the leaf litter, and dies.

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Amid the leaf litter, fallen boughs of tree privet become clothed in colourful, frilly terraces of trametes versicolour fungus, and are slowly digested. Each ruffle grows outwards from the substrate in rings, like ripples emanating from a rock dropped into water. After hatching from black eggs on the forest floor, pūriri moth larvae feed on the porous underside of these fungi, before making their burrow in the flesh of a living trunk.

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From inside the living trunks, tree wētā appear one by one at dusk, like lights flickering on in an apartment complex. The wētā occupy the abandoned burrows of pūriri moths, nibbling the bark around the tunnel entrances as the caterpillars do, to prevent the holes closing over. If you sit quietly beneath the privets and look up, dozens of thorny hindlegs are poised, awaiting complete darkness.