A small coastal tree with large, soft leaves and sticky, club-shaped fruit. Parapara grows to ten metres in height, with a spreading crown and dark, fissured bark. The leaves are large, soft, and oval, up to 15 centimetres long, with a pale green underside. The flowers are small and greenish, but the fruit is the story. The fruit are covered in sticky, glandular hairs that trap small birds. The fruit hangs in clusters from the branches, each one a sticky club. A small bird landing on a fruit becomes stuck. It struggles, and becomes more stuck. Sometimes, the bird starves to death, hanging from the tree. Parapara is sometimes called the birdcatcher tree for this reason. Biologically, the sticky fruit is an adaptation for seed dispersal. The fruit sticks to birds, and the bird carries the seed to a new location. But the system is imperfect. Small birds get stuck and die. The tree kills as many birds as it uses. The Ngāti Porou tribe of the East Coast had a specialised method for extracting oil from the seeds. The seeds were steamed, then pounded and pressed to release the oil. The oil was used for scenting and for various ceremonial purposes. The sticky fruit was noted for its bird-trapping properties. Parapara is more common on offshore islands than on the mainland because rats eat the fruit and prevent regeneration. On the mainland, the fruit is eaten before it can fall. On the islands, the fruit falls, the seeds germinate, and the tree persists. To see a Parapara is to see a tree of contradictions. Beautiful and deadly. Sticky and useful. A trap and a gift. Parapara is not a king. It is not a warrior. It is the trickster of the coast, the one that offers oil with one hand and death with the other.