NOTE - THIS PROTO-PAGE IS STILL IN THE EARLY STAGES OF CONSTRUCTION!

This plant is grown commercially as it is a nutritious vegetable, best cooked as the raw leaves are very mildly poisonous; it also contains oxalic acid so should not be eaten in huge quantities! According to Murdoch Riley (Herbal, p. 221) the bitterness that develops in older leaves was traditionally removed by boiling the kökihi with the roots of the pöhue (a kind of convolvulus). The name is derived from a Proto-Polynesian root denoting primarily a cosmopolitan species of Oxalis; the particular form it takes in Mäori is shared with the cognate word in Rarotongan.

The alternative name, rengarenga, is a slight mystery, but probably relates to its status as a food eaten occasionally but which came into its own in emergencies.