The principal edible, because the most widespread, was the fern-root. It was prepared in several ways. The most elaborate consisted in macerating, steaming, and kneading the gummy fibrous stuff, and keeping the resulting mess until a kind of fermentation began in it. The readiest way was to simply roast the scraped root, then to beat it into softness between two stones. When cold, this last became hard like biscuit. It is tolerably nutritious, but not particularly nice, according to Pakeha notions. The root of the ti, and of the toi, too, I believe, is far better food, but was neither so plentiful nor so easily grubbed up. Baked or boiled it is not bad eating, being very farinaceous. The earliest missionary settlers made beer from a wort of it. Whether this was known to the Maori previous to the advent of the Pakeha, I have been unable to discover. The pith of the nikau is wholesome, nutritious, and palatable. The tree is plentiful enough in the North. Unlike the root of the cabbage-tree just mentioned, it is eaten raw. There is a bushy grass (_Gahnia_ and _Cladium_), strong spiny stuff, in the forest, which also has an edible pith. The root of the raupo (_Typha angustifolia_), the swamp-grass of which the Maori construct their wharè, is edible, similarly to that of the cabbage-tree. Punga-punga, the pollen of the raupo, used to be made into bread. There are one or two other roots and piths also esculent, but neither so good nor so plentiful as those just recorded. There are the fruits of the hinau, rimu, matai, miro, kahikatea, koraka, tawa, kohekohe, taraire, tawhera, and other trees and shrubs. And there is the interior of the stem of one of the fern trees. There are the native spinach or Renga-renga (_Tetragonia expansa_), the Pana-pana, or cress (_Cardamine hirsuta_), and the Reti-reti, or sorrel (_Oxalis magellanica_), which do for salad and green vegetables. As they are plentiful, they might be more freely used by settlers and bushmen than they are. To them may be added the Toi (_Barbarea vulgaris_), a herb which served the ancient Maori as cabbage. Then there is a native celery (_Apium australe_), a nettle (_Urtica incisa_), and a dandelion (_Taraxacum dens-leonis_), all of which might be eaten. The Maori also made use of the root of an orchid (_Gastrodia Cunninghamii_), and the root of a bindweed (_Convolvulus sepium_). They called the first Hirituriti, and the latter Panake. These roots are farinaceous and nourishing, and were baked and consumed in large quantities. The three plants cultivated by the Maori—Kumera (_Ipomœa Batatas_), Hue (_Cucurbita_, _sp._), and Taro (_Caladium esculentum_), are all to be found growing wild. There are also now to be found wild many of our garden vegetables, including the potato, tomato, capsicum, tobacco, cabbage, cape gooseberry (_Physalis Peruviana_), watercress—called Kowhiti by the natives—and many more.