PuatE 29.—CORYNOCARPUS LAVIGATA. 
(THE KARAKA.) 
Famity ANACARDIACE/. | ' [Grnus CORYNOCARPUS, Fors. 
Corynocarpus levigata, Forst. Char. Gen. 31, t. 16; Cheesem. Man. N.Z. Fl. 104. 
The subject of this plate is universally known throughout New Zealand by 
its Maori name of karaka, and must be regarded as one of the most interesting 
members of the flora. It was first collected by Sir Joseph Banks and Dr. Solander 
in Poverty Bay, on the occasion of Cook’s first landing in the colony, and was 
subsequently observed in most of the localities visited by that illustrious explorer 
during his first voyage. An excellent description was prepared by Solander for 
his manuscript ‘“ Primitie Flore Nove Zelandizw,” but was never published. It 
was consequently left to the two Forsters, who again collected the plant in Queen 
Charlotte Sound during Cook’s second voyage, to describe it in their “ Characteres 
Generum Plantarum ”’ under the name of Corynocarpus levigata. 
The karaka is eminently a coastal plant, but in the North Island, in addition 
to fringing the coast-line from the North Cape to Cook Strait, it is also found in 
many lowland forests at a considerable distance from the sea. In the South Island 
it is purely coastal, and often decidedly local, although it is found as far south as 
Banks Peninsula on the east coast, and the mouth of the Buller River on the west. 
It is plentiful in the Kermadec Group, and attains its extreme southern limit in 
the Chatham Islands, where it appears to be abundant. 
Corynocarpus is a very isolated genus. Although referred to the Anacardiacee 
by Hooker and others, it differs from that family in the total absence of the resin- 
canals and in the peculiar structure of the andrecium. Hence Engler, in the 
“ Pflanzenfamilien,” constitutes it the type of a new family, to which the name of 
Corynocarpacee is applied. Mr. W. B. Hemsley, in an elaborate paper printed in the 
“ Annals of Botany ” (vol. xvii, p. 748), has discussed the relationships of the genus 
at considerable length, but while admitting that the absence of resin-canals shows 
a marked deviation from the characters of the Anacardiacea, all the other genera 
of which possess them, he is still of opinion that this peculiarity is not accompanied 
by correlated characters of sufficient importance to justily its exclusion from the 
family. Until the publication of Mr. Hemsley’s memoir it was supposed that the 
genus was confined to New Zealand; but he has been able to show that there are 
two other species, one (Corynocarpus similis, Hemsl.) from the northern New 
Hebrides, the other (C. dissimilis, Hemsl.) from New Caledonia. This discovery 
seems to point to the probability of Corynocarpus being a genus of Melanesian or 
Malayan origin. 
Before the arrival of Europeans the karaka was a plant of prime importance 
to the Maoris. Mr. Colenso, whose admirable paper on “ The Vegetable Food of 
the Ancient New-Zealanders ” (Trans. N.Z. Inst. xiii (1881), pp. 1-38) is a veritable 
storehouse of information, says that “its nut or seed was of inestimable value to 
the Maori as a common and useful article of vegetable food, second only in place 
to their prized kumara tuber.” ‘The pulp or flesh of the fruit was eaten raw: but 
the large seeds, which were the important part, required preparation before they 
could be eaten, for in the fresh state they are not only bitter and unpalatable, but 
exceedingly poisonous, causing convulsions and permanent rigidity of the muscles, 
often followed by death. They were therefore treated in the following manner: 
The seeds were collected in baskets, and placed in large heated ovens, in which they 
were baked or steamed for a considerable time. They were then transferred to 
