CoLENSo. — On the Vegetable Food of the Ancient New Zeatanders. 25 



aquilina), partly under the belief (which still obtains with some folks) that 

 that common British species is identical Avith this of New Zealand ; or, at 

 all events, that both plants were but varieties of one species, which I, how- 

 ever, do not believe, for they differ in several important particulars, particu- 

 larly in the root itself. The experiments signally failed, very likely owing 

 to the roots having been dug up and used fresh, and that perhaps at the 

 wrong season of the year ; besides, they did not go about its preparation 

 and cooking in the right way. This is what the celebrated cryptogamist, 

 the Eev. Mr. Berkeley, says about it: "The long creeping rhizoma of a 

 variety of Pteris aquilina was formerly much used in New Zealand for food ; 

 but, if the New Zealand variety is not more palatable than our own, it is a 

 very undesirable food*. The rhizoma of our own form of Pteris aquilina 

 when roasted has just the slimy consistence, taste, and odour of ill-ripened 

 brinjals " [Solanum melongena. — W.C] " when cooked, than which nothing 

 can be a worse compliment. The great objection, however, to this as an 

 article of food is the nauseous mucilage. If the rhizoma, after being washed 

 and peeled, is scraped, so as to avoid including the hard-walled tissue, and 

 then mixed with a sufficient quantity of water, the mucilage will be dis- 

 solved, and after a few hours may be decanted," etc. — {Introduction to Crypto- 

 gamic Botany, p. 519.) 



2. The second is the succulent fruit of the karaka tree [Corynocarpus 

 licvigata), a genus confined to New Zealand, of which, also, only this one 

 species is known. This fruit, or, rather, in common language, its nut or 

 seed, was of inestimable value to the Maori as a common and useful article 

 of vegetable food, second only in place to their prized kumara tuber ; and I 

 should have placed it before the fern-root, only it is not so common, being 

 confined to the vicinity of the sea. In its raw state, however, it is a deadly 

 poison ; a small quantity sufficing to throw into convulsions and great and 

 permanent distortions of the limbs, and to kill ; but prepared and cooked, it 

 is perfectly innocent and wholesome. The Maoris ate both the flesh 

 [sarcocarp) of the fruit (« drupe) when fresh and ripe ; and its kernel (embryo) 

 or large seeds ; it was this latter only that was poisonous in its raw state. 



Every autumn the Maoris removed in large numbers, — men, women, 

 and children, — to the karaka woods and thickets on the sea-coast, to gather 



* This statement has never failed to remind me of what the Maoris said and did when 

 they first saw our mission wheat growing at the Bay of Islands, a vegetable production 

 too, which they had long wished for, through having so often tasted bread, biscuit, and 

 flour, of all which they were passionately fond. " What ! " said they on seeing it in leaf, 

 " Grass, it is only grass ;" and then a little later, when early in ear, they hastily and 

 eagerly tried some of its green half-iilled grains, and spat them out with disgust and 

 reproof to us. 



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