262 Essays. 
cooked. A few also of the sea-weeds were eaten, such as the karengo (a 
tidal species of Laminaria found plentifully from the East Cape to Cape 
Turnagain), the rehia, the rimurapa (D’ Urvillea utilis), and some others, 
including Porphyra vulgaris; some of which were also used exclusively to 
thicken the sweet juice of the tupakihi or tutu (Coriaria ruscifolia) ; while 
the small berries of the makomako (Aristotelia racemosa), of the heath-like 
totara (Leucopogon fraseri), and of two species of MuAlenbeckia (M. adpressa 
and M. complexa), of the ngaio (Myoporum letum), of two species of Pimelea 
(P. prostrata and P. arenaria), and the large plum-like fruit of the taraire 
(Nesodaphne taraire), fine-looking but not very gustable, were eagerly 
sought after in their season by children; who also, with adults, thought 
highly of a sugary manna-like exudation (of doubtful vegetable origin) 
called pia-manuka, and found in the summer occasionally on the branches 
of the Leptospermum scoparium. The aromatic root and stem of the papaii 
(Aciphylla squarrosa), and the insipid watery koreirei, or roots of Typha 
angustifolia, were also eaten raw ; while in times of great scarcity the roots 
of the matuakumara (Geranium dissectum), and of the ririwaka (Scirpus 
maritimus), were also eaten. 
Gi.) The plants of utility and ornament were very numerous—from the 
giant pine to the tiny moss. These may be conveniently classed thus :— 
(1.) Clothing, or fibre-yielding plants; (2.) timber trees, and other plants, 
whence they obtained their ‘canoes, war and husbandry instruments and 
vessels ; and (3.) plants and vegetable substances used as ornament. 
(1.) Of the clothing, or fibre-yielding plants, one only was generally 
cultivated, and that, too, was not indigenous, viz., the aute, or paper-mul- 
berry tree (Broussonetia papyrifera) ; this shrub, or small tree, was assiduously 
planted, but only for the purpose of obtaining white fillets for the hair of 
the chiefs. It has long been nearly, if not quite, extinct. The harakeke, 
or New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax and Ph. colensoi), of which there are 
many varieties, was sometimes planted, but not largely so; more to have it 
handy, or to secure a prized variety, than with a view to eultivation or to 
improve its fibre. The leaves of these valuable plants were universally used, 
both scraped and unseraped, and the fibre prepared in various ways—by 
scraping, soaking, beating, dyeing, and twisting—for clothing for both sexes. 
From it the chiefs’ elegant and ornamented silky paipairoa, and the shaggy 
bee-butt looking pake and ngeri, with their many intermediate kinds of 
clothing mats, were alone manufactured. Common articles of clothing and 
war-mats of defence were also woven from the leaves of the kiekie (Freyci- 
netia banksii) and from those of the ti (Cordyline australis) ; while from the 
fibres of the handsome large-leaved mountain ti (Cordyline indivisa), very 
strong and heavy mats for apparel, called toi, were made, which, dyed black, 
