Mamaku

Mamaku – Cyathea medullaris- Black tree fern, punga

Not endemic to NZ. It is distributed across the south-west Pacific from Fiji to Pitcairn and New Zealand.

An endemic species found on the North Island south to Dunedin on the South Island.

Mamaku is found in the Tangihua forest

On the road in to the lodge and on the nature trail. Tt is the most common of pungas and through out the forest.

Description

Cyathea medullaris is a tall tree fern characterised by black frond stalks (stipes) and fronds arching upwards from the crown.

Shedding of old fronds occurs when stipes break at their point of attachment to the trunk leaving a surface with closely-spaced hexagonal leaf-base scars.

Flowers and leaves

Significance to Maori

Mamaku tree ferns grow in damp gullies throughout New Zealand. Reaching 20 metres in height, they have oval-shaped frond scars on the trunk. The white pith of the trunk and the koru (new shoots) are edible, although slimy when first cut. Māori stripped the trunk’s outer layers so the slime could dry or drain away. The plant was then cut down and cooked whole. Alternatively, koru (new shoots) were hung to dry. Baking was the preferred way to cook mamaku, to separate the stringy fibres from the flesh. Although the taste is bland, the nutritional value is high.

MEDICINAL:

Gum – a vermifuge (Reed and Brett’s Auckland Almanac 1874).

The poultices the native doctors use are the convoluted top of the Mamaku.. boiled. This is certainly a strong drawer, and very quick poultice (O’Carroll 1884).

Bruised pith a poultice for sore eyes (Kerry-Nicholls 1886).

Poultice – inflamed breasts (Bell 1890).

Young shoots scraped, used for poultice for boils (Poverty Bay Federation of Women’s Institutes Cookery Calendar; mid 1930s?).

Pith bruised, used for sore eyes, swollen feet. (Taylor 1848 and 1870; Goldie 1905; Adams 1945).

Young coiled shoots (pītau) boiled and liquid drunk to assist in removal of placenta (T. Kora, 1941).

Inner tissue of young fronds, before they have uncurled, used as a poultice for boils. Fronds not cooked (M. Withers 1941).

Also poisoned hands, saddle sores on horses. Slimy tissue rubbed on wound or scraped and applied as poultice, either raw or boiled (Adams 1945).

Poultice for boils (Collier 1959).

Gum useful for diarrhoea (Baber 1887).

Medicinal plant tasting like cooked potato (Servant 1973).

FOOD:

The tender shoot of this fern tree when cooked, is eaten as well as a portion of the medulla, it is rather insipid but not disagreeable (Taylor 1847).

Inner stem eaten. Described in detail. …an agreeable article of food, slightly sweet. When cooked, called pitau. It is not improbable, that if it were dried it might be used as sago. Highly prized in winter. (Taylor 1855).

Pith of stem extensively eaten, a favourite dish; when dried in the sun, a poor substitute for sago. Undeveloped fronds sometimes boiled (Kirk, in Taylor 1870).

Baked inner stems and sago-like pith eaten (Colenso 1869a, 1869b, 1881).

This esculent appeared in thick junks of about a foot in length; it is the mucilaginous pith of the great black tree-fern Cyathea medullaris. It was presented ready dressed, was soft, very sweet to the palate (Potts 1879).

Pith slimy but sweetish. Cut into thin slices and cooked for a long time in the hangi. Slices were threaded on a string of flax and hung up to dry in the sun (Makereti 1938).

Detailed section on mamaku in Best 1942, pp. 92-96. (Also Best 1903, 1908) Discusses errors by earlier writers in stating that root, rather than inner stem, eaten (Forster, Nicholas). Also queries use of word baked as used by some for cooking process. Says steaming a more accurate term. Lower part of stem not eaten. Preparation, cooking process described.

Grew in South. Chop it down and there are two horns like a cow’s. These are called piko and are eaten too as well as the trunk. The latter is put in the umu and said to take about 2 days to cook (Karetai to Beattie, in MS 582/E/11).