Coprosma grandifolia. Manono. Kanono.
Previous names
Previous names
Coprosma australis
Māori names
KANONO, MANONO, raurēkau (East Coast), raurākau, kānonono, kapukiore, kawariki, pāpāuma, tapatapauma, patutiketike, kākawariki, karamū-kueo, toherāoa (Best 1907).
Common names
Food
Berries eaten (Colenso 1868a, 1880).
Leaves used to wrap round hīnau cakes (Best 1942).
Dyes
Coprosma species as a source of dyes investigated by Aston 1918a, 1918b, 1918c, 1918d, 1919a.
C. grandifolia excellent dye plant. Colours vary depending on the mordant. Gives a deep golden colour, especially the older shrubs growing in sunny places. Yellow dye prepared from pulverised bark. Fibre boiled in the liquid (stone boiling). Best says dye "little used" (Best 1907).
The smaller-leaved Coprosma, or karamu rauriki, is not used by the Whanganuis (Te Rangi Hiroa 1911).
Fishing and hunting
Leaf used by fowlers as a pepe, or call leaf (Best 1907)
Domestic
Sitting and sleeping places sometimes strewn with the leaves (Colenso 1868a).
In summer, filmy white substance detached from the leaves - used by women to make a kind of apron, or a pohoi, a bunch of material suspended from the ear. Thin white film called kahu raurēkau (Best 1907).
Medicinal
"Papa-auma, mistletoe [sic.], the bark is bruised and applied for the itch". (Taylor 1870, Kerry-Nicholls 1886)
Inner bark: sap applied to scabies (hakihaki) (Goldie 1904; Best 1906, 1907)
Bark crushed, applied to cuts and bruises (Best 1906, 1907)
Steep bark in cold water, good for bathing aches and pains (Poverty Bay Federation of Women"s Institutes Cookery Calendar ; mid 1930"s?)
Bark of manono and tips of kānuka boiled together and used externally for venereal disease ( M. Stevens 1941).
Infusion of leaves applied to broken limbs and bruises ( H. Honana 1941).
Bark (but not leaves) boiled and applied as a pack to broken limbs ( K. Kahaki 1941).
Leaves and cut twigs boiled (sometimes with rātā vines). Bluish black fluid used warm, wound constantly bathed. Widely used on bad cuts, festered sores, bruises, gunshot wounds and fractures, in Bay of Plenty and North Auckland (Adams 1945).
Applied to festering sores and boils (Collier 1959).
Related pharmacology in Brooker, Cambie and Cooper 1987.
Chemistry
Bark has bitter, pungent taste. Need to wash hands after handling wood (Best 1907).
Chemical compounds listed in Cambie 1976, 1988, with references.
Leaf flavanoids surveyed by Wilson 1984.
