Introduction
*Masele ~ The sedges
1. Cyperus javanicus
2. Scleria polycarpa
3. Rhyncospora corymbosa
*Maele ~ The ferns
1. Cyclorus interruptus
2. Psilotum nudum
These ferns on Luangiua
Gallery
Although they are treated as the reflexes of a single term, *Masele alternating with *Mahele, in the Pollex database, there seems to be two sets of words listed: those referring to rushes with cutty leaves, derived from the *Masele proto-form, and those referring to ferns, which do not incorporate the *sele (cutting) element, which is clearly part of the semantics of the words denoting the sedges. If this element were present in the Luangiua (Ontong Java) or Māori words it would be reflected by /s/ and /h/ respectively; the Pollex reconstruction gets around this by hypothesizing a variant with Proto-Polynesian *h, which would be missing from Nuclear and East Polynesian reflexes. However, if the Luangiua and Māori words are related to each other, the fact that they both refer to ferns and the others all refer to cutty-leaved sedges would seem to be a good reason to group them separately, without an *s or *h in the proto-form. Although this would mean that there is no Māori parallel to *masele, we can describe the three species of rush covered by the West Polynesian term as they are part of the Eastern Polynesian flora too, albeit under different names, although they do not occur in Aotearoa.
*Masele ~ The sedges
The name for the three sedges sharing it is unique to Western Polynesia; if it were used before the migration to the islands east and south of Tonga, Samoa and Niue it was forgotten on the way or lost after arrival. One of these plants, Cyperus javanicus, is widely distributed in Eastern Polynesia, but is known by a number of local names (listed in the box above), none of which are cognate with their Western Polynesian counterparts.
 1. Cyperus javanicus
This large, course-leaved sedge is thought to have originated in the "Old World" tropics, but is now widespread in the tropical Pacific. The sharp-edged leaves grow up to 1 metre long by a centimetre wide, curving downwards. The flowering culms are also 1 m. high with a multi-rayed inflorescence about 10 cm across. It grows in moist areas near swamp margins in the Cook Islands, where it is regarded as indigenous, but thought by William Sykes to have been introduced, certainly to the Northern Cooks, and posibly to the southern islands as well (Flora, p. 221). In the Marquesas it is found in similar moist habitats including stream banks and cliffs up to 600m above sea level. In Samoa by contrast it is found near the coast, on rocky or sandy shores, and in coastal taro patches, never far above sea level.
At one time the stems of this rush appear to have been used in Samoa for making hats, but details of how this was done had been lost when Art Whistler enquired in the 1980s. In Tahiti and the Cook Islands the stem fibres were extracted and woven into a mesh used to express the cream from grated coconut -- coconut palm fibres were used for this in Western Polynesia, and harakeke fibres (muka) for a similar process for extracting tītoki oil in Aotearoa. In Tahiti the threads from the beaten stems were used for a variety of purposes, including making the coconut-cream strainers and also special brushes for applying designs to tapa. In the Cook Islands and Tahiti the plant also had medicinal uses; it was used for treating contusions and sprains in Tahiti.
In Hawai'i this rush is also common in marshes, taro paddies, along streams and ditches, coastal pastures, rocky coastal sites and cliffs. It is an indigenous plant, probably originally carried to the islands by birds. Traditionally, the fibres from the pounded stems were were used for straining kava, a use that they were also formerly put to in the Cook Islands in addition to expressing coconut cream. The Hawai'ian name, 'ahu'awa, literally "kava cloak", reflects this. Isabella Abbott (La'au Hawai'i, pp. 62-3) notes that it was encouraged to grow around lo'i kalo (taro paddies) for easy access. The fibres were easiest to extract soon after the stalks were cut, dried in the sun, then used for 'ahu'awa or cordage. They were also used as a lashing in house construction and in applying certain designs to tapa. The cord resists abrasion, and can also survive several days immersion in water.
 2. Scleria polycarpa
This sedge (illustrated on the left) is a little smaller than the others, with leaves about 30 cm long by 4-9 mm wide, although the 3-angled culms can be over a metre high. The leaves are finely serrated, placing it in the 'cutting' category. It is known as tapatolu (from the triangular culms) or selesele in Samoa, mahelehele in Tonga, and maselesele molomolo or vao maselesele on East Futuna. The species is described by T.G. Yuncker (Flora, p.74) as "rather frequent" throughout Tonga, Samoa, New Caledonia and Polynesia, but no particular uses seem to be reported. The plants are found in swampy areas and lower and montane forest to 650m.
3. Rhyncospora corymbosa
This sedge, known as hano or mahelehele in Tonga and selesele in Samoa, is even larger than Cyperus javanicus -- it can reach 1.5 m in height. It grows in wetlands in Tonga and Samoa. It is not currently used in Samoa but may once have been used in plaiting hats or fans. The stem is 3-angled, the leaves are sharp-edged and the lower midribs are rough.
*Maele ~ The ferns
The three "*masele" sedges are denizens of the swamps and seashore. The "*maele" ferns, however, are for now a mystery, as the people who collected the names glossed them simply as the name of a fern, without a botanical name or further description. We do however have a list of the ferns that grow on the atoll of Luangiua, compiled by Prof. Tim Bayliss-Smith in the 1970s. Some of these species are also found in Aotearoa, and we have selected two of them, Cyclosorus interruptus (Thelypteraceae) and Psilotum nudum (Psilotaceae), to stand in for the species whose identities are currently unknown. This is not a completely arbitrary decision. There is other linguistic evidence that this atoll was the hub of a secondary migration from West to East Polynesia, with a stop-off period in the Solomon Outliers on the way from Samoa to the Marquesas and Rarotonga (you can read more about that in the Proto Nuclear Polynesian section on the "Language Introduction" page). Two other plant names have been suggested (again, for the moment, on rather flimsy evidence,) to have orginated during this period, those for horoeka and koropuka. Although the plant name maele or maere is not found in other East Polynesian languages, there is a remote possibility that the Luangiua and Aotearoa names might be linked. The Māori name, māereere, with its reduplicated ending, implies that this plant is "like a maere" -- yet there is no maere, or even "ere" in the known Māori lexicon. So it is possible that one of the very early settlers of Aotearoa did know of a plant with that name from a distant location, and that it was remembered here after it was forgotten in Tahiti and Rarotonga.
1. Cyclosorus interruptus
This is a plant of swamps and bogs, and associated with taro patches in many of the places where it is found. It has subterranian rhizomes with dark brown, branching hairy roots from which single fronds, each reaching about the same height, emerge at intervals. This is probably the reason for its Tagalog name, pakung-buwaya "crocodile fern"; its Latin name is derived from the circular sori (spore cases) and the spaced out fronds. It is distributed from Southeast Asia to Australia and the Pacific, yet despite the close association with taro has only local names and in many places no name at all -- just classed as a fern or a weed. I had thought it might have been introduced to Aotearoa accidentally along with taro, but an archaeologist friend informed me that spores of Cyclosorus interruptus in the geological record long pre-date the arrival of humans with the taro.
 The fronds of Cyclosorus interruptus can grow up to about 60 cm high, with the stipes comprising a third to half the length. There are up to 20 pairs of leaflets per blade, with a pointed, attenuated terminal one. The circular sori are neatly arranged in parallel with the margins of the leaflets. A distinctive feature of the species is the presence of round to triangular scales scattered along the lower section of the midrib on the underside of the frond (illustrated on the left).
In Hawai'i the fern occurs "in freshwater marshes, fens, bogs, mucky wetlands and abandoned taro patches, near sea level to 1070m. all major islands" (Daniel Palmer, Hawai'i's Ferns, p. 103). In Aotearoa it is "a rare fern which has suffered both from drainage of swamps in the north and geothermal development further south" (Brownsey & Smith-Dodsworth, New Zealand Ferns, p. 91. Its natural range would be swampy coastal areas from Kawhia and Tauranga north, and near hot pools and steam vents in Taupo and Rotorua, from sea-level to about 500m. It is easy to grow if kept damp, e.g. in a large pot without drainage holes -- it was thriving in Te Māra Reo in a pot in an undrained tub which filled with water every time it rained, until I made the mistake of transferring it to a well-drained patch -- it did not survive a prolonged dry spell.
In the Cook Islands Cyclosorus interruptus is found on four of the southern islands -- Mangaia, Aitutaki, 'Atiu and Ma'uke, where it appears in swamps, and, on Mangaia, occasionally in stream beds. Where it grows in the Cook Islands the fronds are occasionally used as mulch for taro fields.
2. Psilotum nudum, the "Whisk Fern"
 This is a most unusual fern, looking at first glance more like a miniature broom than a fern. Psilotum is one of the most ancient genera of fern-like plants, which emerged before the ferns themselves. It was first classified by Linneus as a Lycopod in 1753, and was given its current scientific name (and distinguished from the lycopods but not recognized as a true fern) by the French botanist A.M.F.J. Palisot de Beauvois in 1805. The family Psilotaceae is still treated as a "fern ally" rather than a fern by many botanists. One of its key characteristics is the lack of true roots in the underground stems. Psilotum nudum is widely distributed throughout the tropics and subtropics, including all of Polynesia and also Spain, Korea and Japan.
In Aotearoa Psilotum nudum is found on the Kermadec Islands, and on the North Island from North Cape to the southern shore of Lake Taupō and Tokaanu. In the northern part of its range it is found on the forest floor in coastal forests and on rock piles and cliff faces -- in Auckland City it often grows unnoticed on stone walls. It is also someimes epiphytic on pohutukawa trees. Further south it is associated with cliff faces and warm soils around fumeroles. On the western shores of Lake Taupō it grows among the pumice-based volcanic rocks, and plants can grow very large in this environment.
The branching rhizomes usually produce clumped plants with branched stalks between 5 and 20 cm high (although they can occasionnally reach almost a metre), either erect or flaccid, depending on the environment. The sterile sections of the stems have tiny, pale-yellow scale-like leaves -- the branches are prominently ribbed and up to about half a centimetre in diameter. On the fertile stems the clusters of spore-cases (synangia) show up as conspicuous yellow globules placed at small intervals along the fertile stems. Both leaves and synangia are visible in the photo on the left.
In the Marquesas this fern is usually found well above sea-level, from about 120-1000 m, occasionally on the ground but more often as an epiphyte on trees and palms, in rock crevices and rockfaces. In the Cook Islands it is also occasionally found on rocks or the ground, but most commonly is epiphytic on the bases of coconut trees or the lower parts of the trunks of other trees.
3. These ferns on Luanguia
The Luangiua (Ontong Java) atoll comprises 122 islands; Professor Tim Bayliss-Smith's thesis reported the Psilotum present on 5 of them and the Cyclosorus, identified only tentatively, on 8, as "non-strand" ferns. They are not singled out as prominent members of the different ecosystems; judging by their locations elsewhere in the Pacific the Cyclosorus was probably associated with freshwater swamps or taro patches, and the Psilotum with coconut trees or coral rock. Coconuts were present on 79 islands and taro on 3, both presumed Polynesian introductions. About 2/3 of the population live on Luaniua Island on the eastern edge of the atoll, and most of the rest on Pelau in the northeast.
Gallery
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