Proto Polynesian: *Pua
REFLEXES IN SOME POLYNESIAN LANGUAGES:
Tongan: Pua (Fagraea berteroana, Gentianaceae, and Plumeria spp., Apocynaceae); Puopua (Of Allocasia microrrhiza, "Kape": to be ready to flower; also Guettarda speciosa, Rubiaceae).
Niuean: Pua ("Bud of a flower; to bud"); Puapua (Guettarda speciosa, Rubiaceae).
Samoan: Pua (Gardenia tahitiensis, Rubiaceae, and other trees with showy flowers); Pua lulu (Fagraea berteroana, Gentianaceae); Puapua (Guettarda speciosa, Rubiaceae).
Marquesan: Pua (Fagraea berteroana, Gentianaceae).
Mangarevan: Pua (Bud of Fagraea berteroana, Gentianaceae)
Rapa Nui: Pua ("Flower").
Hawaiian: Pua ("Flower, blossom"; Nestegis sandwicensis "Olopua", Oleaceae; and an element in many other plant names)
Tahitian: Pua (Fagraea berteroniana, Gentianaceae, and the introduced climber Allemanda cathartica, Apocynaceae; also "To burst into flower").
Tuamotuan:Pua ("Blossom out, flower").
Rarotongan: Pua (Fagraea berteroana, Gentianaceae; also "Blossom, bloom").
Maori: Pua ("Flower, seed; to bloom, set seed "); Puapua (Clematis paniculata, Ranunculaceae).
Moriori: Pua, "Flower".

COGNATE REFLEXES IN SOME OTHER AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGES
Ponapean (Micronesia): Pwur (Fagraea berteroniana, Gentianaceae)
Wayan (Fiji): Bua (Generic name for trees with pretty, sweet-scented flowers, including Gardenia augusta, Rubiaceae, Plumeria rubra, Apocynaceae, and Fagraea spp., Gentianaceae).
Bauan (Fiji): Bua (Fagraea spp., Gentianaceae); Buabua (Fagraea gracipiles, Gentianaceae).

SEMANTICALLY RELATED WORDS
Māori: Puāwai ("Flower"); hua ("fruit; bear fruit or flowers", from Proto Austronesian *buaq "fruit", Proto-Polynesian *fua "fruit; to bear fruit; egg"); ngāwhā ("bloom", from Proto Polynesian *faqa "burst, split open", Proto Eastern Polynesian *ngafaqa "burst, break, split open"); puaka ("flower").

Pua is a multi-valent word in Māori, encapsulating the dynamics of flowering (as can be seen from its use in Biblical translations, below). It also signifies a tree, or a part of the forest, frequented by birds.

In its reduplicated form, the word has echoes of its Proto-Polynesian and earlier ancestry as the name for a showy flowering plant -- originally a tree, but in the new environment transferred to a vine which festoons the treetops with showy flowers in the spring.

The Puapua, Clematis paniculata, is also known as the pua-wānanga ("flower of learning") and by a number of other names, most shared with other species of Clematis, has the largest and most spectacular blossoms of the New Zealand species of Clematis. as befits the child of Rehua (Antares, the star whose rising marked the coming of summer) and Puanga (Rigel -- Puanga kai rau, Puanga of the hundred foods, the bringer of plenty).

Clematis paniculata is a high-climbing liane; the main stem on a tall tree can be 10 cm in diameter before it branches. The spectacular, fragrant flowers have white sepals instead of petals; the male flowers are up to 10cm in diameter, the female a little smaller. The are borne abundantly in panicles on the upper branches. After flowing the seeds emerge attached to long, silky plumes, which facilitate their dispersal by the wind. The plumed seed clusters are nearly as spectacular as the flowers themselves while they are still attached to the plant. The leaves develop in three stages, thin, attenuated leaves on very young plants, followed by short, roundish leaves with wavy margins, then larger, entire leaves 5-10 cm long and about half as wide, heart-shaped at the base with pointed tips. The plant frequents the margins of forests throughout Aotearoa, including the Three Kings and Stewart Islands, flourishing where there is ample moisture. Traditionally, the sap was used for treating wounds and abrasions.

A few other species of plants also have been given names incorporating the word pua and the derivative form puapua in Aotearoa. These are the kōpuapua, Cordyline pumilo (also known as tī-kōraha), which has masses of very sweetly scented flowers in Spring. Others include the puatawhiti, Metrosideros fulgens (Myrtaceae), a climbing rātā with spectacular orange-red petals and scarlet stamens, and also two species of daisies [Asteraceae], Anaphalioides trinervis (puatea) and Craspedia lanata (puatororaro), whose unopened flower buds are perhaps reminiscent of some of the tropical pua, to which otherwise they bear no obvious similarity, to this observer, at least. More likely, the "pua" element in these latter names refers to the derived meaning of "flower, blossom" rather than to the earlier connotation of a plant bearing spectacular, sweetly perfumed flowers.

The "original" Pua, Fagraea berteroana (pictured on the left and at the top of this page) and Guettarda speciosa (shown below, on the left, and in the gallery) are both forest trees with showy, scented flowers. Not all the uses of the reflexes of the word *pua and its derivatives in reference to specific plants are confined to those with initially white flowers. For example, the introduced climber Allamanda cathartica, a native of South America but widely grown throughout the tropics, is known as pua in Tahiti and has spectacular yellow flowers from the start.

Fagraea berteroniana is a large, spreading tree reaching 15 metres high. It is a canopy tree which often starts off as an epiphyte, eventually strangling its host, but it is also found among the scrub at very high elevations. It has glossy, dark green leaves fragrant flowers with white, rounded petals which fade to orange as they age, and orange fruits about 2 cm in diameter. Its natural habitat extends from New Guinea to tropical Polynesia as far as the Marquesas. Art Whistler describes it having "one of the most asttractive flowers in Polynesia, which are gathered in the wild and used for personal adornment and for scenting coconut oil" (Rain Forest Trees of Samoa, p. 82). It was once also used for making leis, but apparently in Samoa rarely so now. It is found from the lowlands to 1,000 m above sea level in Samoa, and grows well on lava flows in Savai'i. This tree has a hard, durable close-grained wood, favoured for carving drums, houseposts, making furniture (including the legs of 'ali -- bamboo pillows), tool handles, and in Samoa, to'ipua -- a tool used to split breadfruit. Its bright orange fruits are eaten by starlings and bats. It is also liked by people -- apart from collecting its flowers from the wild, it has been used as a garden plant from antiquity.

Other flowering plants commonly known as pua include the Tahitian Gardenia, Gardenia taitensis (a canoe plant native to Vanuatu), and the more recently introduced frangipani, Plumeria spp. Both are commonly used as ear ornaments, in leis, and for scenting oil throughout tropical Polynesia. The Plumeria also has medicinal uses. In Hawaii, there are many plant species whose names include pua as an element, but only one, the olopua, Nestegis sandwicensis, which is also known as pua without any further qualification. Its primary link with the original referents of this name is probably its being particularly valued as a source of timber for building houses. Fagraea berteroana is not native to Hawai'i but is now widely grown there, and known as pua kenikeni "the ten cent flower", because of its usefulness in making expensive leis.

Guettarda speciosa (known as puapua in Samoa and Niue, but 'ano in Rarotonga) has a widespread distribution in the southern hemisphere, from East Africa and Malesia to the southern Cook Islands and the Tuamotu archipelago (Malesia is the biogeographical region consisting of Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and, in some interpretations, New Guinea). It is widespread in littoral forests, and occasionally further inland, growing to about 12 metres in height. Its white, dense timber is heavy and durable, and on attols it is used for houses, furniture and conoe-building. It is not greatly esteemed for these purposes on most high islands, however, which have higher quality timber trees. The fragrant white, long-stemmed flowers are borne in small clusters, and are valued for their use in scenting coconut oil. This is done by squeezing the grated coconut "meat" to extract coconut cream, then adding the scented petals and putting the mixture out in the sun each day for about a week, by which time the infused oil will have separated from the cream and floated to the surface of the bowl. (The sun provides the gentle heat needed to extract the perfume from the petals and other plant material.) The scented oil is then carefully skimmed off and stored traditionally in special bottles (fangu in Tonga and Samoa [fagu]) made from the Polynesian wax gourd, Benincasa hispida var. pruriens. Fresh petals and more coconut cream can be added to the mix, and the process repeated several times over.

Pua (and Puāwai -- along with Kōrari) in Te Paipera Tapu

Neither pua nor puapua makes an appearance as a plant name in Te Paipera Tapu, but pua is used to denote the process or results of flowering, as in the examples below. The first example also marks the solo appearance of kōrari as a plant name in Te Paipera Tapu -- the Hebrew text actually refers to the linen flax, elsewhere designated by rinena, the Māori adaptation of the English "linen". In this one verse however the Hebrew original is translated by kōrari, the Taitokerau word for the Phormium tenax plant itself, very different in appearance and size from the linen flax, but also a source of fibre; elsewhere in Aotearoa kōrari stands for the flowering stem of the plant.

I patua te korari me te parei; kua pupuku hoki te parei, kua pua hoki te korari. [Exodus 9:31]
Now, the flax and the barley were ruined, for the barley was in the ear and the flax was in bud. [NRSV]

E rite ana ki te pua nani, i tona whakatokanga ki te whenua, ko te iti rawa ia o nga purapura katoa i runga i te whenua: Otira, ka oti te whakato, ka tupu, ka nui ake i nga otaota katoa, a ka nunui ona manga: no ka noho nga manu o te rangi i tona taumarumarutanga iho. [Mark 4:31-32]
It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade. [NRSV]

Puāwai

He puāwai ahau no Harono, he rengarenga no nga awaawa. [Waiata a Horomona, 2:1]
I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. [NRSV]
I am the rose of Sharon, the lily of the valleys. [JB]
O a'u o le fuga o le la'au i Sarona, o le susana i vanu. [TP]

Interestingly, for the second appearance of havatzeleth, the translators of Te Paipera Tapu resort to using the Maori adaptation of English "rose" as its equivalent, and incorporate puāwai in the phrase whai puāwai "bear blossoms". The English text translates havalzeleth as "crocus", while, in a departure from normal practice, the Samoan text uses a local plant name, 'aute (the brilliant red Polynesian hibiscus).

Ka koa te koraha me te wāhi mokemoke, ka hari te koraha, koia ano kei te rohi te whai puāwai. [Ihaia 35:1]
The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom, like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly. [NRSV]
E 'oli'oli 'ona o latou le vao lafulfuā ma le nu'u naumati; e fiafia le toafa ma fua mai e pei o le 'aute. [TP]

Puāwai is the default word in Te Paipera Tapu for flowers (as in the above text) or parts of flowers, for example:

Me hanga ano te turanga rama ki te koura parakore: me patu te mahina o te turanga rama tae noa ki tona take, ki ona peka; ko ona kapu, ko ona puku, me ona puawai he kotahi me ia. [Exodus 25:31]
You shall make a lampstand of pure gold: the base and shaft of the lampstand shall be made of hammered work; its cups, its calyxes, and its petals shall be of one piece with it. [NRSV]

Hei mua hoki i te kotinga, kia ngahoro te puawai, kia puta ki te puawai he karepe e maoa haere ana, na ka hatepea atu e ia nga peka ririki ki te tapahi peka, a ko nga manga ka tangohia, ka tapahia ki raro. [Ihaia 18:5]
For before the harvest, when the blossom is over, and the flower becomes a ripening grape, he will cut off the shoots with pruning hooks, and the spreading branches he will hew away. [NRSV]