Proto Central Eastern Polynesian: *Tōtara Diodon hystrix (Diodontidae - a family of puffer fishes)
REFLEXES IN SOME POLYNESIAN LANGUAGES:
Tahitian: Tōtara (Diodon hystrix [Diodontidae])
Hawaiian: Kōkala (D. hystrix)
Tuamotuan: Tōtara (D. hystrix)
Rarotongan: Tōtara (D. hystrix)
Maori: Tōtara (Podocarpus totara, Podocarpaceae; Leucopogon fraseri [Ericaceae]; Polytrichum juniperinum [Polytrichaceae]; Libocedrus plumosa [Cupressaceae]; Pātōtara (Leptecophylla juniperina [Ericaceae])

RELATED WORDS
There are several other plant names associated directly or indirectly with marine creatures. A Hawaiian parallel to the Māori deployment of the fish-name tōtara to designate a tree is the use of hāpu'u, from Proto Polynesian *fāpuku, reflexes of which generally denote one or more species of grouper, to designate highly valued species of tree ferns of the genus Cibotium; in Māori, Te Hāpuku is the deity associated with marine mammals and tree ferns, and in both languages the cognate word also denotes the fish species.

Watch this space! This is one of the pages written in the prototype stage of this web site, which has been transferred with minimal changes to the newer format. It is still therefore very much under construction, but contains the essential linguistic and botanical information, and both updated text and pictures will be added progressively as soon as time permits (new pages for plant names not yet discussed are being given priority). If you would like this page to be updated sooner than planned, please email a note to temaarareo at gmail.com.

If you think that the picture on the right doesn't look like a plant, you are correct -- it isn't. Rather it is the puffer fish, Diodon hystrix, which is the creature denoted by reflexes of *tōtara in many Polynesian languages.

But if you look at the spines, you'll see why in Aotearoa the name was applied to the tōtara tree, Podocarpus totara, whose prickly mature leaves, pictured below, are highly reminiscent of the tropical tōtara's spines.

The other Māori reflexes of *tōtara also refer to plants with stiff, prickly leaves.

Robert Blust (Austronesian Languages, p.324) has noted that this kind of change in meaning motivated by a change of physical environment is well illustrated by the reflexes of the Proto Malayo-Polynesian word for porcupine fish, *taRutung, which in communities which had retained their links with the sea, from the Philippines to Polynesia usually has retained its original meaning unchanged, has been used in inland communities to refer to prickly land animals like porcupines or prickly fruits like the durian.