Hamilton. — Moriori Carving on Trunks of Karaka-trees. 13 



tion is incomplete and the figures of the pans of the flower 

 inaccurate, there can be no question about tlie tree intended. 

 It was described from specimens collected in New Zealand on 

 Cook's second voyage (1772-75), and the perfect fruit seems to 

 have been unknown to the Forsters or they would hardly 

 have given it a name signifying club-fruit. They were evi- 

 dently unaware, too, that the fruit of Corynocarpus is edible, 

 or it would have been included in G. Forster's ' De Plantis 

 Esculentis Insularum Oceani Australis.' But Sir Joseph 

 Banks and Dr. Solander, who were the botanists on Cook's 

 first voyage (1768-71), also brought specimens of this tree to 

 England, and it was described and figured by them under the 

 name of Merretia lucida (in memory of Christopher Merrett, 

 M.D., author of ' Piuax reruni naturalium Britannicarum,' 

 1661). The authorities of the Botanical Department of the 

 British Museum have obligingly furnished me with a copy of 

 the description, which is very full, and accurate in most of the 

 details. The most important point in which it differs from 

 what I have observed and what other authors have described 

 or figured is the shape of the petaloid staminodes. They de- 

 scribe them as ' apice tricuspid ata, cuspide intermedio duplo 

 maiore.' The staminodes of G. similis and C. dissimilis are 

 acutely toothed at the apex, whilst those of C. IcBvigata are 

 irregularly and minutely toothed from about the middle up- 

 wards and around the top. There can be no doubt about 

 Banks and Solander's specimen having been brought from 

 New Zealand, because exact localities are given, and because 

 Cook did not visit the New Hebrides on his first voyage. On 

 the second voyage he touched at several of the islands; but 

 the Forsters record their Corynocarpus from New Zealand, 

 and their figures and description of the staminodes convey no 

 information whatever beyond the presence of such bodies in 

 the flower. Banks and Solander also describe a fully de- 

 veloped fruit in the following terms : ' Drupa oblongo-ovalis, 

 glaberrima, lutea, magnitudine Olivae Hispanicae (l^unc), sub- 

 stantia carnosa, lutea sesquilineam crassa edulis.' They fur- 

 ther describe the 'nucleus' (seed) as ' amarissimus.' 

 In 1823 or 1824 it appears to have been introduced into 

 English gardens. ... A. Cunningham, in 1840 (' FloraB 

 Insularum Novae-Zelandise Precursor,' in Ann. of Nat. His- 

 tory, iv., p. 260), gives a Latin description of all the parts 

 except the fruit, and cites Banks and Solander's manuscript 

 name. He is also the first, so far as I am aware, to explain 

 the process by which the Maoris got rid of the poisonous pro- 

 perties of the seeds and rendered them edible." 



With regard to the first notice of karaka-berries as food, 

 Polack gives the name kou as " the steamed kernels of the na- 

 tive fruit karaka." His work was published in London in 1840. 



