кх ! Appendix. 
the hairs which cover the bases of the leaf-stalks of the large Cyathea I have 
just mentioned, and which resembles the mamau, or puru as it is called in the 
Sandwich Islands, in colour. 
I do not find that any of these are eatable in the young state, like 
C. medullaris, but one of the species of Angiopteris produces a curious sort of 
sheathing process at the base of the fronds, which, when roasted, is very good 
food for a hungry man—very solid and, I should think, nourishing. The 
other species of Angiopteris I have occasionally seen with leaves fifteen feet 
long, and a root stock of a nearly spherical shape and two feet in diameter ; it ` 
is, without exception, the most enormous fern I ever saw ; the leaves emit an 
agreeable perfume when bruised or cut. I think there are three species, but 
am not certain if the one with somewhat digitately-branched leaves, which 
I have only once seen in the valley of Piré, is different from the eatable one. 
I observe in the * Companion to the Bot. Mag." what I think must be an 
error, although by whom or how made, I cannot at present point out. In the 
“Specimen of the Botany of New Zealand,” under the head of Gleichenia 
hermanni, is appended an observation purporting to be by Forster, which can 
only apply to the plant which I have always supposed to be Pteris esculenta, ` 
and which is the common fern of New Zealand, growing everywhere and 
universally eaten by the natives. I am nearly certain that they do not eat 
the root of any species of Gleichenia, in fact the Gleichenias have small, hard, 
wiry rhizomes. 6. hermanni is the common fern of Tahiti ; I do not believe 
the same species grows in New Zealand, and am sure that it is not eaten or 
eatable in Tahiti. Again, under the head of Pieris esculenta, is attached a 
doubt if it is a native of New Zealand, and it is stated that Forster gathered it 
at Tahiti. Now, if I am right with regard to the identity of Pteris esculenta 
with the common fern of New Zealand, no such species of Pteris grows in Tahiti, 
nor do the natives of this island eat the rhizome of any Pteris whatever—at 
least I have made every enquiry among the natives, and am also assured that 
it has not been met with by either one of four very industrious collectors 
(French officers) who have been in the habit of making botanical excursions 
for the last two or three years whenever their customary avocations permitted, 
and I have often heard from them expressions of wonder as to what the 
Pteris esculenta of the catalogue could be. I therefore think that there must 
have been some changing of labels or mixture of specimens, which has led to 
a confusion of two very different species of plants. 
Among the few eatable plants peculiar to the South Sea Islands, and 
apparently indigenous in Tahiti, may be mentioned, as deserving the first rank 
from its utility, the féi (6-1), Musa fehi of Bertuo. This plant in many places 
covers the mountain sides almost to the exclusion of every other vegetable, 
and forms a great portion of the food of the natives at all times of the year. 
