Seaweed for Health.

The merits of seaweed, of various kinds are well-known to the Maoris. These contain iodine, and although the Maori did not know that, he found that the globules which grow on seaweed contain a juice healing for sore throats and sore ears. Also, the kind called karengo is a popular vegetable, dried and then boiled, on some parts of the East Coast of both islands. The word karenqo is curiously like the Irish “caragcen,” for seaweed used in the remedy Irish Moss, and it contains similar properties.

A good poultice is made of the convoluted tops of the mamaku ferntree, boiled. The young leaves of the poroporo plant make a healing salve.

The root of the kawakawa plant chewed is a remedy for toothache; so is the juice of the inner bark of the ngaio tree.

There are many more, all useful for some ill or other; and certainly there is an abundant supply of the raw material, some of it in our own gardens where native trees are grown.