CoLENSO. — On the Vegetable Food of the Ancioit New Zealanders. 31 



15. The inner part of the white succulent roots fkoreirei) of the raupo or 

 buh'ush (already noticed), was also largely eaten raw, especially by children 

 in the summer ; it is mild, cooling, and refreshing, and not unpleasant. 



16. In times of great scarcity of vegetable food, the globular nut-like 

 roots of the riiriiwaka, tall sedge (Scirjyus maritiwus), Avere collected and 

 eaten, — that is, the kernel-like inner part. It was amusing to witness the 

 half-wild pigs of the modern Maori in the summer season — before the 

 arrival of the European settlers — when the littoral swamps were drying up, 

 how they would go into them, and dig and crack and munch those roots, 

 concealed in the sedges of the swamps ; they were often detected by the 

 sound of their cracking and munching ! 



17. Another fleshy root, and that a tolerably large one, of the Orchis 

 family, often the size of a middling-sized kumara tuber, or of a stout, long- 

 red radish root — the perei (Gaslrodia cunnmghamii) — was also eaten ; but it 

 was rather scarce, and only found in the dense forests. 



18. Lastly, the leaves of several smaller plants were also used in their 

 season as vegetables ; as ravpeti (Solanum nigruvi) ; toi (Barbara australis) ; 

 tohetake (Taraxacum dens-leonis) ; and the very young succulent and mucila- 

 ginous shoots of two ferns, Asplenium hdbiferinn and Asplenium lucidum. But 

 the use of these in modern times, or during the last 40-50 years, was com- 

 monly superseded by that of the extremely useful and favourite plant — the 

 "Maori cabbage," (Brassica o/tra cm j, introduced by Cook (nanii, of the 

 Maoris at the north ; and rearea at the south), of which they carefully sowed 

 the seeds. I have, however, often partaken of Solanum nigrum, boiled as 

 greens, at the table of a settler.''' 



Before, however, that I close this subject, a few words on their summer 

 fruits may not be out of place. Foremost here (the karaka having been 

 already mentioned) is the tutu ( Coriaria ruscifoUa) ; the rich and wholesome 

 juice of the berry-like petals of this plant, common everywhere, was in 

 large request and plentifully expressed into big calabashes, which were kept 

 in a cool place for immediate use. Next is the tawhara, which can scarcely 

 be called a, fruit, being the large thick white fleshy and sugary bracts of the 



* I mention this as being a similar instance to that I have given of Convolvulus 

 sepium (ante) ; the Solanum nigntm of Europe being narcotic and poisonous. Lindley 

 says of it, — " It is more active in its narcotic and dangerous symiDtoms than Solanum 

 dulcamara,^'' — the English bittersweet, both also being British plants, — " a grain or two 

 of the dried leaf has sometimes been given to promote various secretions, possibly by 

 exciting a great and rather dangerous agitation in the viscera. It is a narcotic, and, 

 according to Orfila, its extract possesses nearly the same power as lettuce opium." — 

 Vegetable Kingdom, p. 620. I had both those plants, with others, and their common 

 edible uses here, as vegetables, in my mind, when I wi'ote what I did in the "Essay on 

 Botany, North Island of New Zealand." — " Trans. N.Z. Inst.," Vol. I., p. 3 of Essay. 



