CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH 



269 



That pot-herbs especially should have been so brought out from 

 England seems the more natural, when it is considered how large a part 

 the still-room played in the lives of gentlewomen of a century ago. 



Each of the plants which in New Zealand we now look upon as 

 a mere weed was then well r known for its medicinal virtues. The 

 warm sweet seeds of the fennel (Fceniculum vulgare) were valued as 

 a carminative medicine for infants. Pennyroyal (Mentha pulegium) 

 was held in high esteem for culinary and pharmaceutical preparations. 

 From other mints was expressed an oil used in medicines as an excitant 

 and stomachic for promoting digestion. Thyme was in high favour as 

 a flavouring ; the extract of horehound was a remedy for coughs and 

 asthmatical complaints. 



Only a generation without physicians, depen- 

 dent on medicines from its own gardens, can fully 

 appreciate these simples of an old-fashioned past. 

 The spread of pot-herbs was very rapid, because 

 their value was very great. 1 



Of catmint (Nepeta cataria) one clump 

 grows, and has grown for years, on the site 

 of a native clearing in the Maungahinahina, 

 another on a Maori cultivation- patch on the 

 Maungaharuru Kange. Its seed never germin- 

 ates on the surrounding turf; the plant never 

 spreads. I am convinced these two clumps could 

 only have reached their present sites by the 

 intervention of man ; doubtless they were brought Catmint. 



direct as rootlets in very early times. 



Spearmint (Mentha viridis) flourishes on the margin of streams, 

 and often covers roods of marsh. Once introduced inland, its rootlets 

 carried down in floods, its seeds attached to the plumage and feet 

 of wild-fowl, the plant would rapidly overrun the travertine deposits 

 where it specially luxuriates. 



1 Doubtless scores of other medicinal plants were imported, though comparatively few may 

 have been able to propagate themselves. I have it from members of the Williams family that 

 Charles Darwin, walking at an early hour in the Mission garden at Paihia, gathered sage-leaves 

 for breakfast. Of his hosts and of their garden he was more appreciative than of their country. 

 " I took leave of the missionaries with thankfulness for their kind welcome, and with feelings 

 of high respect for their gentlemanlike, useful, and upright characters. I think it would be 

 difficult to find a body of men better adapted for the high office which they fulfil." It is heart- 

 rending to read his additional remark. " I believe we were all glad to leave New Zealand. It 

 is not a pleasant place." 



