New Zealand Journal of Botany abstracts

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Gardens without weeds? Pre-European Maori gardens and inadvertent introductions

Helen Leach

Department of Anthropology
University of Otago
P.O. Box 56
Dunedin, New Zealand

Abstract  The weed-free status of the first Maori gardens seen by Europeans may be attributed to high standards of care and fewer unwanted species. Maori swidden practices involving long fallow periods mitigated against invasion by native species, and the transfer of Polynesian cultigens to temperate ecosystems helped eliminate tropical “weeds”. However, botanical, historical, and linguistic evidence suggests the inadvertent introduction to New Zealand by Polynesians of at least six tropical species. An argument is made that the negative European concept of “weed” was not held by Maori.

Keywords  Maori gardens; invasive species; concepts of weeds; New Zealand; Polynesia

B04040; Received 5 October 2004; accepted 24 December 2004; Online publication date 17 March 2005
New Zealand Journal of Botany, 2005, Vol. 43: 271–284
0028–825X/05/4301–0271 © The Royal Society of New Zealand 2005

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