Māori Plant Use Database Plant Use Details of Schoenoplectus tabernaemontani

Māori Plant Use

Plant Use Details

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Kāpūngāwhā, Schoenoplectus tabernaemontani, Moawhitu, D'Urville Island.Pūkeko in foreground.
Photo: Geoff Walls

Kāpūngāwhā. With pūkeko.
Photo: Geoff Walls

Schoenoplectus seedheads.
Photo: Geoff Walls

Sample mat of kāpūngāwhā, woven by Katarina Tawiri
Photo: Sue Scheele

Kāpūngāwhā stems showing inner pith.
Photo: Sue Scheele

Schoenoplectus tabernaemontani. Kāpūngāwhā. Wāwā. Weaving plant.

FAMILY: Cyperaceae Sedge family

BOTANICAL NAME: Schoenoplectus tabernaemontani

PREVIOUS NAMES: Schoenoplectus validus; Scirpus lacustris

MĀORI NAME: kāpūngāwhā, kōpūngāwhā, kōpūpūngāwhā; kuta, kūkuta, kutakuta; wāwā, kūwāwā, pūwāwā; paopao, papao (all recorded in Williams 1971)

COMMON NAME: lake club-rush

MEDICINAL: See also Eleocharis.

Leaf juice used in attempt to cure blindness (Taylor 1870).

Related pharmacology and chemistry in Brooker, Cambie and Cooper 1987.

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

FIBRE: Weaving. Plaiting. See also Eleocharis.

DOMESTIC: Stems used in plaiting of floor-mats (Te Rangi Hiroa 1923)

RECORD NUMBER: 1193