LILIACE^ 483 



Allium fragrans, Linn. Wild Onion; Sweet-scented Garlic 

 The Agricultural Department reported this in 1899 as "spreading 

 in warmer portions of the Colony." The identification is doubtful; 

 Cheeseman does not mention the species. 



Cordyline terminalis, Kunth. Ti pore 

 In 1895 Mr T. Kirk described a species of palm lily which was 

 found at Ahipara in a garden there, as Cordyline Cheesemanii. Two 

 specimens were growing which had been found in different localities 

 in the same neighbourhood. In 1900 Archdeacon Walsh described 

 two specimens which were in the garden of a Miss M. A. Clarke in 

 Waimate North, and which that lady found in a long-deserted native 

 village in the neighbourhood. Mr J. B. Clarke told Canon Walsh 

 that in the fifties the same plant was to be found in many native 

 settlements in the north, and that he had seen it about Lake Omapere. 

 The natives formerly used to eat the root, which was very large, 

 long and succulent; they called the plant "Ti pore." Cheeseman 

 identified this with Cordyline terminalis, a species found very abun- 

 dantly in Polynesia and westwards to India. The Ahipara specimens 

 were found to belong to the same. In the Manual of the New Zealand 

 Flora, Cheeseman says this species was 



" formerly cultivated by the Maoris in the Bay of Islands and other northern 

 districts; now nearly extinct." " Walsh mentions other instances of C.terwzf- 

 nalis having been found in old Maori cultivations, and argues with much 

 probability that the plant was originally introduced by the Maoris on 

 their first colonisation of New Zealand." 



A tradition, mentioned by Mr Best, and already referred to here 

 (p. 12) states that the ti was brought by the Nukutere canoe which 

 landed at Waiaua near Opitiki; that is about five hundred years ago. 



In a recent letter Mr Elsdon Best writes (Aug. 1916) as follows 

 regarding Cordyline terminalis: 



I do not know and have not seen this. Walsh calls it Tipore. But the 

 ti para, which T. F. Cheeseman says is quite distinct from C. terminalis, 

 was a cultivated species or variety on both coasts . The ft" tawhiti of Taranaki 

 seems to be the same thing. I have never seen the ti para growing wild, 

 that is away from places where natives have lived. This is curious. 

 Apparently it has no specific name. I am told that it is still found up the 

 Whanganui River, where it is known as ti Kowhiti. It was cultivated for 

 food purposes. The leaves of one I grew were an inch and a half wide; 

 this came from the last (I think) surviving plant in the Bay of Plenty. The 

 natives do not seem to have preserved traditions of the introduction of 

 Cordyline ; it was possibly brought, with the Karaka, from Sunday Island. 



In the Kst of Maori names of plants in the Appendix to Cheese- 

 man's Flora the name ti para is given on the authority of Williams 

 as " Cordyline sp. cultivated for the sugary root." 



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