CoLENSo. — On the Vegetable Food of the Ancient New Zealanders. 17 



iu 1850-2, and then hoped I should see both flowers and fruit ! I pro- 

 visionally named it C. edulis. It was formerly cultivated extensively, both 

 at Waikato and Upper Whanganui, also here in Hawke's Bay, and in other 

 jjlaces ; and, from what I have heard from the Maoris, there also it did not 

 produce flowers. 



Is this another curious instance of a plant losing its powers of producing 

 blossoms, etc., through long and continuous cultivation from its suckers ? — 

 a kind of vegetable breeding in-and-in. 



I have also good reasons for beheving there was yet another and a much 

 smaller species of Cordyline formerly cultivated for the sake of its root. 

 (It was in 1838-9, at Waikato.) Young seedlings were carefully selected 

 and planted out, and in the following year the root was fit for use. The 

 plant was then dug up, stacked in small piles, and dried in the sun ; while 

 drying the fibrous roots were burned off ; and when sufficiently dry the 

 roots were scraped and baked slowly, requiring 12-18 hours to cook them. 

 These were chewed, or pounded and washed and squeezed, and used merely 

 to extract the saccharine matter, which was eaten with their fern-root to 

 give it a relish. I have never seen the plant itself, only its dried roots. It 

 may be the same as Cordyline jmmilio, but this I doubt. | By the Maoris of 

 Waikato it was called mauku. 



5. Two other food-yielding plants were, I believe, also cultivated by the 

 ancient Maoris, viz., the karaka ( Corynocarpus IcBvigata) and the kohoho'^' 

 ( Solanum aviculare). Occasionally, at least, they planted them both iu 

 their plantations, and also in their towns (pas). And this will account for 

 the karaka being often found isolated, or in small clumps of old trees, in 

 many spots inland, away from its own natural habitat near the sea. I am 

 the more inclined to believe that they did so, from the fact of my having 

 been informed many years ago by an old priest (tohunga), of the secret 

 tabooed way to make a young karaka tree, on its being so transplanted, 

 become fruitful. Nevertheless they always preferred the fruit of the wild 

 or naturally growing ones ; so, under that head, I shall mention its ser- 

 viceable fruits and its uses. And just so of the kohoho, which may still be 

 found of a large size in old pas and plantations. A cultivated kohoho, in 

 ancient days, belonging to the Chief Uenuku, is made to play an important 

 part in one of their legends. f 



As I have prominently brought the old Maoris before you in this paper, as 

 great cultivators of the soil, I will also briefly mention two other plants (not 

 being food-producing plants) which they also cultivated for textile uses ; seeing 

 they were but of two kinds, — including the several varieties of one of them. 



* This is its name at the north, but poporo and poroporo at the south, 

 t See Grey's Mythology, p. 124. \ See Part III. of this paper. 



