260 Essays. 
valuable to them, they must have raised immense quantities annually—an 
operation requiring unceasing care and toil on their part, as they generally 
fresh-gravelled their plantations every year; and which, combined with the 
great care required for the raising, keeping, and preservation of this root, 
could only have been effectually done through the beneficial influence of the 
taboo (tapu). Of the second, the taro, they had also several distinct 
varieties (exclusive of the inferior kind called by them tarohoia, which, 
with many other roots, was introduced by Europeans) ; they also ate the 
thick succulent stems of this plant, as well as its root, and sometimes its 
leaves. A large flourishing taro plantation is one of the most beautiful 
cultivations the writer has ever seen. These were planted in regular 
quincunx, the soil evenly laid, and strewed with white sand, and patted with 
their hands, giving such a relief to the elegant large shield-like dark-green 
versatile leaves of the taro, drooping gracefully from their thick clean red- 
brown stalks, and were scrupulously kept in perfect order. This plant very ` ` 
rarely flowers, and it has never been known to produce seed. The third, 
the hue, which is only propagated by its seeds, is very constant to its kind, 
although it varies much in size and shape, and has no varieties. The 
staple uneultivated articles of vegetable food were three fruits, the well- 
known fern-root, and the wild sow-thistle. Those three fruits are peculiar 
to the country, and comprised the hinau (Lleocarpus dentatus), the karaka 
(Corynocarpus levigata), which was often planted about their villages, and 
the tawa (Nesodaphne tawa). Those berries (drupe) were not however such 
as are generally known to civilized nations by the name of edible fruits, 
being scarcely so, especially those parts of them which were mainly used, 
save through long and necessitous habit. Although those fruits were 
yielded spontaneously and in abundance where the trees producing them 
grew, yet the gathering, preparing, and storing them, so as to be kept fit for 
food, was no light labour. The kernels of the karaka, after due preparation, 
would remain sound some time in a dry store, but not near so long as those 
of the tawa. Much labour, too, was required to procure and fit the aruhe 
or root of the common fern of New Zealand (Pteris esculenta) for food, 
while the spots producing fern-root of the best quality were by no means 
common. The puwha, or milk-thistle (Sonchus oleraceus), the large-leaved 
variety, was common, though not, it is reasonably suspected, too plentiful ; 
and this was abandoned for the smaller-leaved European kind (after its 
introduction), as being less bitter and more palatable. 
(2.) The smaller fruits and vegetables invariably used while in season 
comprised (a) those which were largely and commonly used, viz.,—The 
fruit of the tutu or tupakihi (Coriaria ruscifolia), the pleasant juice of which 
in the early summer was drunk with avidity in large quantities; the berry 
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