458 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



two of their common articles of food — often, in the olden 

 times, in daily use — are considered : rotten corn (maize, dry 

 and hard, in the cob) long steeped in water to soften it, and 

 dried shark. The former, however, has long been abandoned ; 

 yet at one period every village at the North had its steeping- 

 pit. 



In a paper I read here at our June meeting* I mentioned 

 some of the very small Hepaticse {Lophocolea and Ghiloscyi^hus 

 species) as being used for perfume by the Maoris, who called 

 them ■piripiri. Their scent was pleasant, powerful, and last- 

 ing. Hooker, in describing thoce plants, has mentioned it 

 from dried and old specimens. Of one species, Lophocolea 

 2:}allida, he says, "odour sweet;" of another, L. nova- 

 zealandice, "often fragrant;" of another, L. alloclonta, 

 "odour strong, aromatic;" of another, Chiloscyphns fissi- 

 stipiis, "a handsome strongly-scented species;" and he has 

 further preserved it to one of them in its specific name, C. 

 jjiperitaa, " odour of black pepper." 



There were also two or three ferns — viz., Hymcnophyllum 

 sanguinolentum, a very strong-smelling species, hence too its 

 specific name ; dried specimens not only retain their powerful 

 odour, but impart it to the drying-papers : Polypodium pustu- 

 latum, having an agreeable delicate scent : and Doodiafrayrans, 

 a neat little species ; this last was so far esteemed as some- 

 times to give name to the locality where it grew, as Puke 

 viokimokiyi the little isolated hill which once stood where 

 the Eecreation-ground now is in Napier; that hill having 

 been levelled to fill in the deep middle swamp in Monroe 

 Street. 



One of the Pittosporiini trees, taiuliiri (P. tenuifolium) , 

 also yielded a fragraiit gum ; but the choicest and the rarest 

 was obtained from the peculiar plant taramea {Aciphylla 

 colcnsoi), which inhabits the alpine zone, and which I have 

 only met with near the summits of the Euahine Mountain- 

 range, where it is very common and very troublesome to the 

 traveller that way. The gum of this plant was only collected 

 through much labour, toil, and difficulty, accompanied, too, 

 with certain ceremonial {taboo) observances. An old tohunga 

 (skilled man, and priest) once informed me that the taramea 

 gum could only be got by very young women — virgins ; and 

 by them only after certain prayers, charms, &c., duly said by 

 the toliunga. 



There' is a sweet little nursery song of endearment, ex- 

 pressive of much love, containing the names of all four of their 

 perfumes, which I have not unfrequently heard affectionately 



* See above, Avfc. XXXVII. 



t Mokimoki Hill, from mokivioki, the name of that fern. 



