446 DICOTYLEDONS AND CONIFER.^ 



CONVOLVULACE^ 



Ipomcea batatas, Poir. Kumara ; Sweet Potato 



When Captain Cook first came to New Zealand the natives were 

 found to have excellent plantations of at least four kinds of plants. 

 Banks in his Journal says : 



Their plantations were now hardly finished, but so well was the ground 

 tilled that I have seldom seen land better broken up. In them were 

 planted sweet potatoes, cocos, and a plant of the cucumber kind. 



Later on he says : 



nor does their cultivated ground produce many species of esculent plants, 



three only have I seen, yams, sweet potatoes and cocos. They also cultivate 



gourds. 



It is difficult to assign a date for the introduction of the kumara 

 into New Zealand. The plant was certainly not introduced by the 

 first immigrants, who appear to have come from Western Polynesia, 

 and who had a strong mixture of Melanesian blood in their veins. 

 At a later date a purer Polynesian invasion took place from Eastern 

 Polynesia, and it was these people who brought in the plant. 



Mr S. Percy Smith tells me: 



There are several accounts of the introduction of the kumara, in fact 

 most tribes have their own account and they differ a good deal. It was 

 such a very important article of food, and everything connected with its 

 growth and harvesting so sacred, and accompanied with so many cere- 

 monies, that each tribe sought to accredit its own ancestors with the 

 honour of its introduction. As a matter of very strong probability, most, 

 if not all of the canoes of the last migration, which took place in the 

 middle of the 14th century, brought the kumara with them. 



The first migration of the pure Polynesians that came from Tahiti, 

 under the celebrated ancestor Toi-te-huatahi, arrived here long before 

 the 14th century ; indeed it has been long settled that the period of that 

 celebrated chief was about the year 1150. He did not come direct, but 

 first made the Chathams, after calling at various islands of the mid- 

 Pacific, and that is the reason probably that he did not introduce the 

 kumara, viz., that the sea-stores were all exhausted on the voyage; for 

 it is quite certain that the kumara was in cultivation in Tahiti when 

 Toi left his home, and doubtless he would have provisioned his vessel 

 with the usual class of stores. 



The fact of Toi not having introduced the kumara is generally con- 

 sidered to be proved by the well-known story of Taukata and Hoake, 

 who arrived at Whakatane in the Bay of Plenty some seven or eight 

 generations after him. On their arrival they gave Toi the name of Toi- 

 kai-rakau, or the wood-eater, because he or rather his descendants had 

 only the native plants of New Zealand to live on. 



Another account of the introduction of the kumara by a very well- 

 known Maori accredits the 'Horouta' canoe with introducing it. And 



