We all know about the special properties of manuka honey, its oil is reknowned for anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties and we have tea on the table (don’t steep it too long as it is bitter). It seems strange that not long ago this remarkable ‘plant of a thousand uses’ (Rob Tipu) was reviled as a weed – with farmers spreading ‘manuka blight’ sooty fungus to slow its spread. Manuka is the saviour of people trying to recloak New Zealand – fast-growing on exposed, bony, eroded and even swampy land – relatively non-paltable to stock with precocious seeding. On poorly-drained areas it develops special tissues to supply air to its roots, unlike kanuka. Its root exudates are also special – they help reduce feacal baceria in farm runoff, improving surface waters.

It also hosts the manuka chafer – also known as the Christmas or jewel beetle, a gorgeous shiny metallic green to pink or blue scarab beetle about 1 cm long.. Pyronota festiva - Wikipedia. Larvae eat the roots (and pasture roots) and adults eat the leaves, and the manuka honeydew scale insect that is a crucial source of sugar for some birds and lizards

New Zealand Garden Journal (Journal of the RNZIH): December 2008, Vol. 11, No. 2, P. 4-8