The Name Mamaku, ex Kaponga.

People who know the New Zealand bush well have remarked on the curious fact that, although the principal station and township here are named Mamaku, not a single fern-tree of the kind called by the Maoris mamaku is to be seen anywhere about here. There are ferns and fern-trees in abundance, but not the korau or mamaku, the black fern-tree, the edible kind scientifically classed as cyathea medullaris. (Korau is properly the name of the tree; the term mamaku is applied to its pith, used for food.)

The explanation of this inappropriateness of nomenclature lies in the fact that the place was originally named, by the Maori explorers, Kaponga, in allusion to the abundance of the page 27 fern-tree so called, but the name was altered in modern times because there was already a township called Kaponga, in Taranaki. The alteration was made in the year 1890, when the Kaponga section of the railway line was under construction. The Taranaki Kaponga had a prior claim, and there was great confusion until the name Mamaku was officially adopted; letters and telegrams were continually going to the wrong place.

It would have been more fitting had the name Tuakura been substituted for Kaponga. This is the name of one of the common fern-trees—or tree-ferns—seen in these parts. It has fewer fronds than the others of the family; they spread out horizontally, with a slight drop at the tips; the general effect is that of an opened or flattened-out umbrella of leaves.

The Katote, too, is abundant in these parts; it is a fern-tree with very numerous fronds, inclining sharply upwards, some almost straight up; great bunches of grey, dead leaves, called by the Maoris “pahau,” or beard, hang down beneath the upspringing coronet of vigorous, green fronds. The most graceful of all is our Kaponga, its feathery frondage drooping from a long slender stem, often sideways leaning; the great leaves are a gleaming white under-neath, hence the popular name, silver fern-tree.