Te reo Māori and settlers’ vernacular plant names compared to botanical nomenclature when referring to the New Zealand flora from 1839 to 2021

ABSTRACT

Three naming systems have been applied to the flora of Aotearoa New Zealand, but differences in their use are poorly understood. Analyses of 45 sets of Māori and settlers’ vernacular plant names and botanical names in Papers Past between 1839 and 1948 shows that Māori plant names were well-used in referring to the flora. Māori plant names (2,242,201; 82.6%) are mentioned more than settlers’ names (465,155; 17.1%) or botanical nomenclature (8,193; 0.3%). Māori name usage was dominant from 1839 to 1858, declined during 1859–1868 when settlers’ names were featured, and increased from 53.15% in 1869 to 90.89% in 1948. In Papers Past, 32 (71.0%) of the 45 Māori plant name(s) are mentioned most often, followed by 11 (24.5%) settlers’ and two (4.5%) botanical names. Analysis of the 45 sets of names in four New Zealand science journals (1863–2020) shows the number of name mentions to be: botanical nomenclature 10,827 (54.4%), Māori 6,731 (33.8%) and settlers’ 2,341 (11.8%). Botanical nomenclature (35 names) and Māori names (10 names) were the most mentioned of the 45 sets of names in the science journals. Analysis of the 45 sets of names in a Google Search undertaken in 2021 confirmed the prevalence of Māori names (92.5%) over botanical nomenclature (7.5%). The most mentioned Māori names refer to plants of economic importance such as rimu, mānuka and mataī. The overall dominance of Māori plant name mentions does not support recent contentions that botanical nomenclature has ‘set aside’ and ‘replaced’ these. Further, the low number of total mentions of botanical nomenclature in Papers Past and the science journals suggests little is to be gained from promoting the use of Māori epithets in botanical nomenclature for newly named taxa, and a strategy for the promotion of Māori plant names in the context of indigenous ecological knowledge is perhaps desirable.

KEYWORDS:

• Colonisation
• folk taxonomy
• indigenous knowledge
• Linnaean nomenclature
• mātauranga
• New Zealand flora

Acknowledgments

I thank several Landcare Research colleagues for discussion on Māori plant names and botanical nomenclature including Ilse Breitwieser, Paula Greer, James McCarthy, Matt McGlone, Ines Schönberger, Rob Smissen and Aaron Wilton. Rob Smissen, Ines Schönberger, Phil Garnock-Jones (as referee), Chris Lusk (as handling editor) and an anonymous referee are thanked for comments on the draft manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by Strategic Science Investment Funding (SSIF) for Crown Research Institutes from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s Science and Innovation Group.