S^ Transactions. — Misceltaneoils. 



climbing kiekie plant (Freycinetia banksii), these were largely collected in the 

 summer in big calabashes, being delicious eating when fresh ;* curiously 

 enough the real fruit of this plant (called ureure), which was also eaten, 

 was only ripe in the winter season, thus being, as the Maoris say, the only 

 New Zealand j)lant which yielded them its fruits twice in the year. The 

 fruits of the larger timber trees, totara ( Podocarpus totara), kahika or kahi- 

 katea (Podocarpus dacrydioides), mataii (Podocarpus spicata), and ri7tm 

 ( Dacrydium cup>ressinurn), were also gathered in baskets full, and greedily 

 devoured ; these, however, were only obtained through difficulty and dan- 

 ger, in climbing those high trees and getting at the fruit on the very ex- 

 tremities of their branches, which the adventurous climber broke off and 

 threw down ; iu doing so not a few accidents yearly happened, some being 

 sadly maimed for life. The purple perfumed berry of the large fuchsia 

 shrub, kotukutuku or konini ( Fuchsia excorticata), were abundant, easily ob- 

 tained, and very nice when fully ripe, even to a European. So were the 

 orange-coloured berries, though small, of the rohutu (Myrtus pedunculata) ; 

 these the natives obtained by spreading their larger garments, or floor-mats, 

 on the ground, and shaking the trees, when the fruit fell in showers ; the 

 berry is about the size of a red currant, seeds large and very hard. The 

 large berry of ^iq poroporo ( Solanum aviculare), was also eaten; it is about 

 the size of a small plum, and when fidly ripe it is not unpleasant eating, 

 before it is ripe it is very acrid. This fruit was commonly used by the 

 early colonists in the neighbourhood of Wellington, in making jam. The 

 koropukii ( Gaultheria antipoda, var. y.J, a curious small white fruit (though 

 large for the size of the plant), growing on a very low shrub only two to 

 four mches high, on the high plains in the interior, is also good eating. 

 And so is the pulp of the rich orange-coloured fruit of the kaicakaiva ( Piper 

 excelsum), when fully ripe, rejecting the numerous seeds. I The small fraits 



* See Proverb 19, " Trans. N.Z. Inst.," Vol. XII, p. 117. 

 t I should here quote a passage from Dr. Seemann's Botany of Fiji ; where, in writing 

 on an allied species of Piper (P. methysticum), he makes some strange remarks on the 

 New Zealand plant, and on the Maoris themselves. (Like not a few others, before him 

 and since, — hastily adopting, or jumping to, a conclusion — not yet warranted by any 

 known soundly logical premises — to bolster-up a pet theory !) Dr. Seemann says : — 

 " Drinking kaiva being peculiar to all light-skinned Polynesian tribes, Dr. Thomson 

 expresses surprise that the Maoris of New Zealand should have forgotten the art of 

 extracting it, ' seeing that the plant (P. methysticum, Forst.) grows abundantly in the 

 country.' But the Piper found wild in New Zealand is not, as Thomson supposes, the 

 Piper methysticum, Forst., (the true kaiva plant), but the P. excelsum of the same author. 

 Hence it can form no surprise that a genuine Polynesian people should have forgotten the 

 art alluded to during the long lapse of time intervening between their departure from 

 Samoa (sic) and their discovery by Europeans. They have, however, preserved the name 



