Te Māra Reo

Sources of Information

This page starts with a brief outline of some of the unwritten sources of information on which I have drawn, through a network of friends, family and colleagues (none of which categories are mutually exclusive!). This network is constantly expanding, and only a few of the many people who have helped me with information about plants and languages are mentioned explicitly here -- quite a number appear on on other pages. I am very grateful to all of them.

The second and larger section is a set of bibliographies of published or otherwise generally accessible material on which I have drawn. Again, as more pages are written, the number of these references will expand. There are also references to other materials not listed here, especially those accessible through web links, on the relevant pages elsewhere on the site. For convenience, the bibliography is arranged in six sections, any of which can be reached directly through the links below.

Personal & Unpublished Sources

Published Sources

Pukatea
Pukatea trunk & leaves
[Photo: The Bushman's Friend]

Tutukiwi
(Pterostylis banksii)
Photo: Michael Pratt,
NZ Native Orchid Group

i'ei'e with fruit 'Ie'ie
(Freycinetia arborea)

Rice Terraces, Banaue
(Northern Luzon)
It is thought that the prototypes of these terraces may have been for growing taro, a plant and name carried throughout Austronesia.

Personal and Unpublished Sources of Information

We glean information from wherever it can be found, principally from talking to people, and consulting books, journals and magazines, but also from broadcast media, and the World Wide Web. Quite a lot of my personal knowledge of New Zealand native plants has come from people and direct personal experience. As a teenager, I had the great good fortune to spend most of my secondary school years in a fairly remote part of Te Taitokerau, where I was introduced to the New Zealand rain forest by a retired bushman, the late Harry Hartnell and his son Henry. I still remember my first expedition -- my guide cut a small branch off a tree, told me the name of the tree (I think it was a pukatea), and handed me the branch. He noticed the expression on my face (I have always had great difficulty in controlling my facial expression!) and said "Ah, would you rather plant them than press them?" I replied affirmatively, because I had been a keen gardener ever since my mother and grandmother recruited me to assist them in looking after our home garden when I was in primary school.

I made many more expeditions into the bush, sometimes with one of my mentors, and increasingly often alone. I designed a special set of saddlebags for my horse, and would come back laden with ferns, native ground orchids (which I became quite skilled at successfully transplanting) and Astelias, which I cultivated in a fernery at home under some large trees, irrigated with the effluent from a septic tank. I read everything I could find on native plants, and especially ferns, and discussed this with people who had spent their lives in the bush, and who, although they had spent many years felling giant trees and hauling out the trunks with bullock teams, were extremely knowledgeable about the ecosystem in which they had worked, and had a deep love of it. Of course, it is easy to forget exactly who first told one something about a tree or other plant, and there will not be many personal acknowledgements in this section. I am, however, most grateful to my many teachers from among the people whose love of our native flora has rubbed off on me over the years.

It is the printed and other publicly accessible sources which are listed here, firstly those which I often refer to as basic texts (and which contain a lot of overlapping information), and then those from which I have gleaned specific information about particular plants. There are, however, a few people whom I must thank individually for providing me with the data on which much of the linguistic commentary is based. These are my friends and colleagues Professors Andy Pawley, Bob Blust and Laurie Reid, Drs Ross Clark and Peter Matthews, along with my first mentor in linguistics, the late Professor Bruce Biggs. They must, needless to say, be absolved completely from any errors of fact or interpretation in what appears on these notes -- I have little trouble in seeking advice, but I do not always take it! Lastly, although she should really be up there in the "workers" section, I must thank Ross’s partner, Liz Pascual, for her offer, which I have gratefully accepted, to make a few Lapita-style pottery labels for some of the “Proto-Oceanic” plants.

The principal unpublished written source which I have made use of regularly is the POLLEX database, first compiled by the late Professor Biggs, and now maintained by his collaborator Dr Ross Clark. This can now be searched on-line through the University of Auckland's Department of Applied Linguistics and Language Studies web site - http://pollex.org.nz/. Another such source is the Proto-Austronesian comparative lexicon which has been developed over several decades by Professor Blust. I am very grateful to have had ready access to these invaluable sources of etymological information.

On a very practical level, I am also indebted to Professor Will McClatchey of the University of Hawaii for his help during my visits to Hawaii in 2007 and 2010, making it possible for me to make full use of the University library, introducing me to a number of very helpful people, and accompanying me on a couple of expeditions to the Lyon Arboretum in Manoa Valley, Honolulu (including offering to inform my family if I happened to fall to my doom at one point when I was trying to get a good angle to photograph a kiekie on the edge of a precipice). Other people who made it possible for me to become much better acquainted with the Hawaiian native flora, especially with the plants whose names had Maori counterparts, included Daniel Forman, who took me hiking in the Kahanahāiki Forest, Oahu, Kawika Winter who arranged for a member of his staff to identify key plants for me at the Limahuli National Tropical Botanical Garden on Kaua'i; Greg Trifonovitch and his friends who became very enthusiastic plant hunters on a visit to the Island of Hawai'i in 2007, and Kate Lynch who enabled me to photograph many of the Hawaiian ferns in her nursery on the North Shore of Oahu. In the Philippines, my affinal relatives in the Eslao, Duque and Pantua families have been generous in providing logistical support, and I have had very useful discussions with Prof Ernesto Constantino, an old friend and colleague, and Dr Edna Ampurado of the University of the Philippines.

Bibliography (Published Works)

GENERAL REFERENCES (PLANTS)

Isabella Aiona Abbott, Lā'au Hawai'i: Traditional Hawaiian Uses of Plants (Honolulu, Bishop Museum Press, 1992)

H.H. Allan, Flora of New Zealand, Volume 1. (Wellington: Government Printer, 1961)

Consuelo V. Asis et al., Plants of the Philippines, Quezon City, University of the Philippines Press, 1971.

Jessica Beever, K.W. Allison and John Child,, The Mosses of New Zealand Second Edition (Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 1992).

Elsdon Best, Forest Lore of the Māori (Wellington: Government Printer, 1977).

Patrick J. Brownsey & John C. Smith-Dodsworth, New Zealand Ferns and Allied Plants (Auckland: David Bateman, 2000).

Bruce A Bohm, Hawai'i's Native Plants (Honolulu: Mutual Publishing, 2004).

Alan Clarke, The Great Sacred Forest of Tane: Te Wao Tapu Nui a Tane: A Natural Pre-History of Aotearoa New Zealand (Auckland: Reed, 2007).

Bruce Clarkson, Merilyn Merrett & Theresa Downs, Botany of the Waikato (Hamilton: Waikato Botanical Society, 2002).

Erling Christophersen, Flowering Plants of Samoa. (Honolulu: Bernice P. Bishop Museum, 1935 / New York: Kraus Reprints, 1971)

H.E. Connor, The Poisonous Plants in New Zealand. (Wellington: Government Printer, 1977)

H. E. Connor & F. Edgar, Name changes in the indigenous New Zealand Flora, 1960-1986 and Nomina Nova IV, 1983-1986, in New Zealand Journal of Botany, Vol 25, 1987, pp. 115-70.

Andrew Crowe, A Field Guide to Native Edible Plants of New Zealand, North Shore: Penguin, 2004

John Dawson, Forest Vines to Snow Tussocks: The Story of New Zealand Plants (Wellington, Victoria University Press, 1988).

John Dawson & Rob Lucas, Nature Guide to the New Zealand Forest (Auckland: Random House, 2000).

H.B. Dobbie & Marguerite Crookes, New Zealand Ferns (Christchurch: Whitcombe & Tombs, [1952]).

Louise Furey, Maori gardening: An archaeological perspective. Wellington: Department of Conservation, 2006.

D.J. Galloway, Flora of New Zealand Lichens, Revised Second Edition (Manaaki Whenua Press, 2007)

George Gibbs, Ghosts of Gondwana (Nelson: Craig Potton, 2006).

Angela Kay Kepler, Hawaiian Heritage Plants (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1998).

David Glenny & Murray Dawson, The second Linnean revolution: DNA sequencing and its impact on taxonomy [with additional name changes for the NZ flora], in New Zealand Garden Journal, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2008, pp. 11-13.

R.M. Laing & E.W. Blackwell, Plants of New Zealand (Christchurch: Whitcombe & Tombs).

Helen Leach, 1,000 years of gardening in New Zealand. (Wellington: Reed)

William Martin & John Child, New Zealand Lichens, Wellington, AH & AW Reed, 1972

L.J. Metcalf, The Cultivation of New Zealand Trees and Shrubs (Wellington: Reed, 1972).

L.B. Moore & E. Edgar, Flora of New Zealand, Volume 2. (Wellington: Government Printer, 1970)

Muriel E. Fisher, E. Satchell & Janet M. Watkins, Gardening with New Zealand Plants, Shrubs & Trees (Auckland: Collins, 1970).

L.J. Metcalf, The Cultivation of New Zealand Trees and Shrubs (Wellington: Reed, 1972).

B.E.V. Parham & A.J. Healy, Common Weeds in New Zealand (Wellington, Government Printer, 1976).

Daniel D. Palmer, Hawai'i's Ferns and Fern Allies (Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 2002).

Murdoch Riley, Māori Healing and Herbal (Paraparaumu: Viking Seven Seas, 1994).

J. T. Salmon, The Native Trees of New Zealand (Auckland: Reed, 1996).

S.H. Sohmer & R. Gustafson, Plants and Flowers of Hawai'i (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2004).

US Department of Agriculture, Natural Conservation Resources Service's Plants Database (http://plants.usda.gov/classification.html)

Kathy Valier, Ferns of Hawaii (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1995).

Warren L. Wagner, Derryl Herbst & S.H. Sohmer, Manual of the Flowering Plants of Hawaii (Revised Edition, 2 volumes) (Honolulu: Bishop Museum, 1999).

W. Arthur Whistler, The Ethnobotany of Tonga: The Plants, Their Tongan Names and Their Uses, Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 1991.

W Arthur Whistler, Tongan Herbal Medicine, Honolulu: Isle Botanica, 1993

DICTIONARIES, LEXICONS & WORD LISTS

Lorrin Andrews, A Dictionary of the Hawaiian Language (New Edition) (Honolulu: Island Heritage, 2003).

James Beever, A Dictionary of Maori Plant Names (Auckland: Auckland Botanical Society, 1991).

Bruce Biggs, Complete English-Maori Dictionary (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1981).

Richard A. Benton (General editor), Te Papakupu o te Tai Tokerau / Tai Tokerau Dictionary [2007]. (Web based publication, http://www.edesignz.co.nz/dictionary/dictionary-index.htm)

Bruce Biggs & Ross Clark, The Pollex Database (Held at the University of Auckland)

Jasper Buse & Raututi Taringa. Cook Islands Māori Dictionary (Rarotonga: Ministry of Education, Government of the Cook Islands, 1995).

C.M. Churchward, Tongan Dictionary. (London: Oxford University Press, 1959).

Rene I. Dordillon, Dictionnaire de la Langue des Iles Marquises (Paris: Institut d’Ethnologie, 1931).

Samuel H. Elbert, Dictionary of the language of Rennell and Bellona (Copenhagen: National Museum of Denmark,1975).

Jordi Fuentes, Diccionario y Gramatica de la Lengua de las Isla Pascua. (Sanitago: Editorial Andres Bello, 1960).

[A Morris Jones (Compiler)], "Maori Names of Plants", in H.H. Allan (Ed.), Flora of New Zealand, Volume 1, pp. 998-1007.

Les Missionnaires Catholiques [des Isles Gambier], Grammaire et Dictionnaire Mangaréviens. (Braine-Le-Comte: Zech et Fils, 1908).

J.M. McEwen, Niue Dictionary (Wellington: Department of Māori and Island Affairs, 1970).

G.B. Milner, Samoan Dictionary (London: Oxford University Press, 1966).

J.R. Porter, Hawaiian Names for Vascular Plants (Honolulu, College of Tropical Agriculture, University of Hawaii, 1972).

Rev. George Pratt, A Grammar and Dictionary of the Samoan Language, with English and Samoan Vocabulary (3rd Edition), London: London Missionary Society, 1893 (Web Version in NZ Electronic Text Centre collection: http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-PraDict-_N65667.html.)

Mary Kawena Pukui, & Samuel H. Elbert, Hawaiian Dictionary (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1971).

Karl H. Rensch, Dictionnaire français-wallisien (Mawson, ACT: Archipelago Press, 2002).

Karl H. Rensch & Arthur W. Whistler, Dictionary of Polynesian Plant Names (Canberra, Archipelago Press, 2009).

Malcolm Ross, Andrew Pawley & Meredith Osmond, The Lexicon of Proto Oceanic 3: Flora and Fauna (Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, 2008).

Stephen Savage, A Dictionary of the Māori Language of Rarotonga (Wellington: Department of Island Territories, 1962).

Ropati Simona, Tokelau Dictionary (Apia: Office of Tokelau Affairs, 1986).

J. Frank Stimson & D.S. Marshall, A Dictionary of Some Tuamotuan Dialects of the Polynesian Language (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1964).

Sven Wahlroos, English-Tahitian Tahitian-English Dictionary, ([Papeete: Éva Wahlroos & Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,] 2002).

H.W. Williams, A Dictionary of the Maori Language (Seventh Edition), (Wellington: Government Printer, 1971).

GENERAL REFERENCES (LINGUISTIC HISTORY & PLANT NAMES)

Alexander Adellar and Andrew Pawley (eds.), Austronesian Historical Linguistics and Culture History (Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, ANU, 2009).

Richard Benton, "Mauri, tupu and the secret life of plant names", in John Bowden et al., eds, 2010, pp. 515-523.

Bruce Biggs, "A Linguist Revisits the New Zealand Bush", in Andrew Pawley (ed.) Man and a Half: Essays in Pacific Anthropology and Ethnobiology in Honour of Ralph Bulmer (Auckland: The Polynesian Society, 1991).

Roger Blench, "Remapping the Austronesian expansion", in Discovering History through Language, ed. Bethwyn Evans (Canberra, Pacific Linguistics, ANU, 2009).

Robert Blust, The Austronesian Languages (Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, 2009).

John Bowden, Nikolaus P. Himmelmann & Malcolm Ross, eds, A Journey through Austronesian and Papuan Linguistic and Cultural Space (Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, ANU, 2010).

Paul Geraghty, "Words of Eastern Polynesia: is there lexical evidence for the origin of the East Polynesians?" in Alexander Adellar and Andrew Pawley (eds.) 2009, pp. 445-460.

K. R. Howe (ed.), Vaka Moana: Voyages of the Ancestors (Auckland: David Bateman, 2006).

P. V. Kirch, On the Road of the Winds (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000)

Patrick Vinton Kirch & Roger C. Green, Hawaii, Ancestral Polynesia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

Jeff Marck, "Proto Polynesian *kainanga" in John Bowden et al., 2010, pp. 607-620.

Andrew Pawley, "The role of the Solomon Islands in the first settlement of Remote Oceania: bringing linguistic evidence to an archaeological debate," in Alexander Adellar and Andrew Pawley (eds.) 2009, pp. 515-540.

OTHER GENERAL REFERENCE WORKS

Te Rangi Hiroa / Peter Buck, The Coming of the Maori, Wellington: Maori Purposes Fund Board, 1958

Hirini Moko Mead & Neil Grove , Ngā Pēpeha a ngā Tūpuna / The Sayings of the Ancestors. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2003.

A. T. Ngata & Pei Te Hurinui Jones, Nga Mōteatea / The Songs, Part 1. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2004.
A. T. Ngata & Pei Te Hurinui Jones, Nga Mōteatea / The Songs, Part 2. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2005.
A. T. Ngata & Pei Te Hurinui Jones, Nga Mōteatea / The Songs, Part 3. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2006.
A. T. Ngata & Hirini Moko Mead, Nga Mōteatea / The Songs, Part 4. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2007.

Margaret Orbell, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Māori Myth and Legend. (Christchurch: Canterbury University Press, 1995)

SPECIFIC REFERENCES

This section will be expanded as pages about the various plants with inherited names are added to this collection.

[Anonymous], “A cut above”. National Business Review, 20 August 2004, p. 33. [Sustainable commercial cultivation of NZ native trees such as miro.]

Luc Baudouin & Patricia Lebrun, Coconut (Cocos nucifera L.) DNA studies support the hypothesis of an ancient Austronesian migration from Southeast Asia to America. Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution, Vol 56, No. 2, March 2009 (online journal).

Andrew C. Clarke, Michael K. Burtenshaw, Patricia A. McLenachan, David L. Erickson & David Penny, Reconstructing the origins and dispersal of the Polynesian Bottle Gourd (Lagenaria siceraria), in Molecular Biology and Evolution, Vol 23, No 5, 2006, pp. 893-900.

M.N. Clout & J.A.V. Tilley, “Germination of Miro (Prumnopitys ferruginea) seeds after consumption by New Zealand pigeons (Hemiphaga nocaeseelandiae)”, in NZ Journal of Botany, Vol. 30, 1992, pp. 25-28.

D.R. Drake, W. A. Whistler, T.J. Motley & C.T. Imada, "Rainforest vegetation of 'Eua Island, Kingdom of Tonga", NZ Journal of Botany, Vol 34, 1996, p. 76

R.C. Green, "Sweet potato transfers in Polynesian prehistory", in The Sweet Potato in Oceania: a reappraisal, C. Ballard et al., eds, Oceania Monograph No. 56, University of Sydney, 2005, pp. 43-62.

Helen Leach & Chris Stowe, Oceanic arbiculture at the margins -- the case of the Karaka (Corynocarpus laevigatus) in Aotearoa. In the Journal of the Polynesian Society, Vol. 114, No. 1, March 2005, pp.7-28.

William Martin, "New Zealand Lichens and Their Habitats", Tuatara v. 17, no. 1, May 1969, pp. 20-26.

Melinda Ostraff, Kiu Anitoni, Angela Nicholson & Gary M. Booth, Traditional Tongan cures for morning sickness and their mutagenic/toxicilogical evaluations, Journal of Ethnopharmacology, Vol 71, Issues 1-2, July 2000, pp. 201-9.

Chris Stowe, The ecology and ethnobotany of karaka (Corynocarpus Laevigatus) : a thesis submitted for the degree of Master of Science (MSc) at the University of Otago, Dunedin, 2003.

W. Arthur Whistler, The other Polynesian gourd, Pacific Science, Vol. 44, No. 2, 1990, pp. 115-122.

WEB REFERENCES NOT INCLUDED ON SPECIFIC PAGES

http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/lichens/2/4

http://www.hiddenforest.co.nz (Lichens & mosses)

http://anthropology.net/2008/07/29/ancient-chilean-chicken-may-not-be-of-polynesian-origin/#comments (Critique of article by Alice A. Storey et al., Radiocarbon & DNA evidence for a pre-Columbian introduction of Polynesian chickens to Chile, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol 104, No. 25, 2007, pp. 10335=10339).

[This page has been prepared by Richard Benton. Last updated 25 October 2010.]

Te Mära Reo, c/o Benton Family Trust, "Tumanako", RD 1, Taupiri, Waikato 3791, Aotearoa / New Zealand. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 New Zealand License