#arthropodium

[jillraggett]

Plant of the Day

Saturday 1 June 2024

In the cool glasshouse of the David Welch Winter Gardens at Duthie Park, Aberdeen, Arthropodium cirratum 'Matapouri Bay' (rock lily) was flowering. This is a clump-forming, evergreen perennial tolerant of dry sites once established but is not reliably hardy.

Jill Raggett

[drhoz]

#1927 - Arthropodium cirratum  - Rengarenga

Photo by @purrdence​ in Taupo, NZ

AKA NZ Rock LIly and maikaika, although that latter is also shared by two orchids with similar starchy tubers. Rengarenga is derived from the Proto-Polynesian for powdered Turmeric, although Turmeric is in the Ginger family and this is in the Asparagaceae (and fomerly the Liliaceae). The plants have similar jointed stems and roots - hence ‘arthropodium’. 

Rengarenga was used (and possibly farmed) for the treatment of boils and abscesses - roots were roasted and beaten and applied warm to unbroken tumours or abscesses. On the other hand Maori Healing and Herbal states that "no less one-fifth of the some 200 plants in this book are used to treat boils and abscesses." Another author in 1883 noted that the root of the plant was eaten in its raw state to cure the itch, although he did not specify what ‘the itch’ actually was.

Colenso recorded in  ‘On the Vegetable Food of the Ancient New Zealanders’ (Transactions of the Royal Society of New Zealand. 13: 338, 1880 ) that rengarenga was one of the few native plants cultivated by Maori for food. 

"The thick fleshy roots of the New Zealand lily Arthropodium cirratum, were also formerly eaten, cooked in the earth oven. This plant grows to a very large size in suitable soil, and when cultivated in gardens. From this circumstance, and from not unfrequently noticed it about old deserted residences and cultivations, I am inclined to believe that it was also cultivated."

When roasted or cooked in a steam oven (umu) they have a flavour not unlike potato. 

The rhizomes of a related plant, vanilla lily Arthropodium milleflorum are eaten by Indigenous Australians.

[jillraggett]

Plant of the Day Thursday 21 June 2018

In the alpine house of Cambridge Botanic Gardens, UK, a pot full of Arthropodium cirratum (New Zealand fringed lily, Rienga lily, rock lily) was flowering. This evergreen perennial forms a clump of glossy, narrow leaves, with grey-green on the lower surface and sprays of small, starry white flowers. It grows in fertile well-drained growing media in full sun.

Jill Raggett

[drhoz]

Divide and Conquer - Gardening Australia

Jane Edmanson turns one plant into many with simple division