Ngā Rauropi Whakaoranga

pukurau Colenso; White; poketara (Beattie 1920) - various informants; tūtae-atua (Best 1942)

puffball

Puffball species used as food (Colenso 1868a, 1880 ; Kirk, in Taylor 1870).

"Another thing to eat came out of the ground after thunderstorms. It was called poketara. You would come out in the morning and see it. It was a round-like ball, and sometimes almost as big as a small football. It was wonderful how it grew so quickly. It had to be eaten at once - after a day it was no good. It oculd be cooked on the fire and tasted like a mushroom." (this and similar descriptions in Beattie 1920).

Steamed and eaten when not too old. Informed by "sage of Matatua" that if you find a pukurau that is too young, to stand so that your shadow falls on it, whereupon the puffball will rapidly increase in size and so provide you with a meal (Best 1942)

The fine reddish dust of the large decaying fungus was applied outwardly to severe burns. (Colenso 1868a).

See Brooker, Cambie and Cooper 1987 for related pharmacology and chemistry.

See Riley 1994 for information on medicinal uses of related plants elsewhere in the world.

"No class" people were called poketara. It lands here in a fog and owns no country so the name is an insulting term for interlopers. (Paipeta, to Beattie. Supplementary notes gathered between 1920-1940, MS 582/E/11 Hocken Archives, Dunedin)