308 Transactions. — Botany. 



care that was taken to keep them free from weeds ; the labour 

 expended in conveying gravel to hill up the kumara planta- 

 tions ; the trouble taken to protect them from strong winds 

 by means of temporary screens or fences ; the months em- 

 ployed in building houses (often highly carved and decorated) 

 in which to store their crops ; the amount of patient care and 

 selection required in raising new varieties, for it is not gene- 

 rally known that more than fifty varieties of the kumara alone 

 were cultivated — when all this is considered it cannot be 

 denied that the Maoris were patient, careful, and expert 

 agriculturists. 



And, putting on one side the disturbing effects due to the 

 intrusion of Europeans, the same statement can be made 

 about Polynesia generally. On the first arrival of European 

 navigators there was every evidence of a long- continued culti- 

 vation of the soil, not, of course, in the same shape that was 

 visible in New Zealand, for in a tropical climate the growth 

 of vegetation is so rapid and the necessity for shading the soil 

 so great that many cultivations, when seen from a distance, 

 present more or less the appearance of a jungle, and an aban- 

 doned plantation reverts to the forest in a year or two. But 

 as regards the extent to which the inhabitants were dependent 

 on vegetable food, the number of different plants cultivated, 

 the care given to their plantations, the assiduity with which 

 new varieties were raised and propagated, the evidence is even 

 more complete than in New Zealand. 



For the purposes of this paper I will briefly allude to the 

 chief plants cultivated for food in tropical Polynesia, passing 

 by the four which have been conveyed to New Zealand, refer- 

 ence to which has already been made. In order of merit the 

 banana will rank first, no doubt. Of late years several varie- 

 ties have been introduced by Europeans ; but at the time of 

 Cook's first voyage Dr. Solander enumerated no less than 

 twenty-three varieties as being in cultivation in Tahiti. Dr. 

 Seemann, in the " Flora Vitiensis," gives the names of nine- 

 teen known in Fiji ; and during a recent visit to Rarotonga I 

 obtained a list of eighteen which were grown on that island 

 before the arrival of Europeans. These numbers will give an 

 idea of the extent to which the banana was cultivated before 

 any foreign demand arose for the fruit. Yet, notwithstanding 

 its great abundance, it is doubtful if the true banana is indi- 

 genous in any part of the Pacific. The evidence, such as it 

 is, seems to point to its gradual introduction, ages ago and 

 step by step, from tropical Asia or Malaya. I have been 

 careful to say " true banana," because there are species of 

 plantains, or cooking-bananas, such as Musa felix, which are 

 undoubtedly indigenous in Polynesia. But these are not cul- 

 tivated to any great extent, although the fruit is regularly 



