New Zealand Journal of Botany, 1996, Vol. 34: 417-420 0028-825X/96/3403-0417 $2.50/0 © The Royal Society of New Zealand 1996 417 Short communication To what New Zealand plant does the vernacular "scurvy grass" refer? historical usage of common names, especially when they were applied to plants prior to their being formally described. While assembling information for an account of the conservation of coastal New Zealand Lepidium species (Norton et al. in press), we have come across this historical problem with the use of the vernacular "scurvy grass", and it has been necessary for us to determine what was meant by scurvy grass before we could evaluate evidence for changes D. A. NORTON in the status of coastal Lepidium species. Conservation Research Group In this communication, we evaluate what plant(s) School of Forestry the vernacular scurvy grass was applied to by the University of Canterbury early European voyagers who visited New Zealand Private Bag 4800 in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Christchurch, New Zealand Did the vernacular scurvy grass refer to Lepidium oleraceum Sparrm. as is commonly assumed, at least since Kirk (1899), or was it more broadly used to Abstract The term "scurvy grass" is used widely include a range of taxa that were used as green vegin New Zealand as a vernacular for the formerly etables? This is important as the taxonomy of what widespread brassicaceous herb Lepidium oleraceum. we now call L. oleraceum had not been resolved at We show that historical usage of this vernacular was the time of early European visits, and it is the acnot necessarily confined to this species or genus, counts from these visits that provide us with an inthereby illustrating the need for caution in using sight into the abundance of Lepidium at the time of historical accounts to help determine past abundance, first European contact. ecology, and distribution. P. J. DE LANGE Northern Regional Science Group Science & Research Division Department of Conservation Private Bag 68908 Newton Auckland, New Zealand Keywords Vernacular names; scurvy grass; Lepidium; L. oleraceum INTRODUCTION Vernacular or common names can be a cause of considerable confusion in botany, often because either the same common name has been applied to more than one plant or because different common names are used to describe the same plant (Parham & Healy 1976). Similar problems also occur with Maori names (Beever 1984, 1991; Anon. 1993). A further difficulty occurs in attempting to understand B95054 Received 22 November 1995; accepted 19 April 1996 EARLY USE OF "SCURVY GRASS" One of the main problems facing early explorers such as James Cook was ensuring that their crews did not suffer from scurvy (Begg & Begg 1969). Plants that could be eaten as fresh greens were, therefore, eagerly sought in new lands. Plants in the Apiaceae and Brassicaceae were particularly popular because they were well known as green vegetables in Europe. The vernacular name scurvy grass appears to have been collectively used for all edible greens but especially those brassicaceous herbs which resemble the European scurvy grass Cochlearia (Gillham 1965), although current usage of the vernacular appears to be restricted to Cochlearia officinalis L. (Brassicaceae), Stellaria holostea L. (Caryophyllaceae), and Galium aparine L. (Rubiaceae) (Grigson 1975). 418 On his first voyage, Cook stopped in Tierra del Fuego (South America) prior to entering the Pacific, and Joseph Banks noted (14 January 1769): "Here is also plenty of wild celery apium antescorbuticum, scurvy grass cardamine antescorbutica, both of which are as pleasant to the taste as any herbs of the kind found in Europe and I believe possess as much virtue in curing the scurvy" (Beaglehole 1962a: 217). Beaglehole notes that Apium antescorbuticum Hort. is A. prostratum Vent, (now referred to A. australe Thouars. in South America, Short 1979), and that Cardamine antescorbutica Banks et Sol. ex Hook.f. is C. glacialis (G.Forst.) DC. Banks also referred to scurvy grass in Tahiti when discussing edible plants (3 June 1769): ". . . and with these [sic] grew several plants we had not seen at Otahite, among them Iberis, which Mr [sic] Gore tells me is the plant called by the voyagers scurvy grass which grows plentifully upon all the low Islands" (Beaglehole 1962a: 285). Beaglehole refers the Iberis to Lepidium bidentatum Montin, which is morphologically similar to L. oleraceum (Whistler 1992). From Tahiti, Cook sailed to New Zealand, to which he returned to on two further occasions. Scurvy grass is referred to in several of the journals kept during Cook's three voyages to New Zealand. In his diary on the first voyage, Cook in describing events at Tolaga Bay (27 October 1769) noted: ". . . the other place I landed at was at the north point of the Bay where I got as much Sellery and Scurvy grass as loaded the Boat" (Beaglehole 1968: 184). Beaglehole calls sellery Apium prostratum and A filiforme (A.Rich.) Hook.f. (= A. prostratum subsp. prostratum MW. filiforme (A.Rich.) Kirk, Short 1979) and scurvy grass Lepidium oleraceum. Reflecting on the botany of New Zealand shortly before departing for Australia, Banks commented (30 March 1770): "Eatable Vegetables there are very few. We indeed as people who had been long at sea found great benefit in the article of health by eating plentifully of wild Celery, and a kind of Cresses which grew every where abundan[t]ly near the sea side." (Beaglehole 1962b: 8). Beaglehole attributes the celery to the taxa noted above but suggests that "Cresses" were: "Probably what Cook called scurvy-grass, Lepidium oleraceum; other candidates would be a wild cress called Poniu, Nasturtium palustre and Cardamine glacialis " (Beaglehole 1962b: 8). New Zealand Journal of Botany, 1996, Vol. 34 Nasturtium palustre DC. is now referred to Rorippa palustris (L.) Besser (Garnock-Jones 1978), a common indigenous New Zealand plant. Cardamine glacialis is not known in New Zealand but the record may refer to R. divaricata (Hook.f.) Garn.-Jones et Jonsell, C. corymbosa Hook.f., or taxa within the C. debilis DC. aggregate. Anderson, a surgeon on Cook's third voyage, also discussed edible plants and commented (25 February 1777): "Of other plants which were useful to us may be reckon'd wild celery which grows plentifully almost in every cove, especially if the natives have ever resided there before, and one which we us'd to call scurvy grass though entirely different from the plant we gave the name to. It however is far preferable to it for common use and may be known by its jagged leaves and small clusters of white flowers on the top" (Beaglehole 1967: 804). Beaglehole refers the wild celery to Apium prostratum, and the second of the two scurvy grasses to Lepidium oleraceum. DISCUSSION It would seem very likely that Lepidium oleraceum was included in the original concept of scurvy grass in New Zealand, but that scurvy grass was in itself non-specific and also referred to other brassicaceous plants and even quite unrelated taxa. For example, in his commentary on Banks' diary Beaglehole noted that in Tierra del Fuego: "Cardamine glacialis DC. 'Scurvy grass' (which Banks had called Cardamine antescorbutica) was a loose term applied to many unrelated plants sharing antiscorbutic properties: Cardamine nasturtioides, as well as C. glacialis; Oxalis enneaphylla of the Falkland Islands; Amaranthus spp., Brassica juncea, Portulaca oleracea, Sesuvium portulacastrum, collectively called 'verdura' by the Spanish navigators, were all used in the Pacific Islands" (Beaglehole 1962a: 217). Beaglehole generally interprets the use of scurvy grass in New Zealand to refer to Lepidium oleraceum, although at one point in Banks' journal, Banks refers to cresses in the plural which Beaglehole (1962b) suggests may also include Nasturtium palustre (Rorippa palustris) and Cardamine glacialis. Anderson also implies that the name scurvy grass was applied to more than one plant, when in the confusing passage quoted above he comments that what was previously called scurvy de Lange & Norton—Vernacular plant names grass was completely different to what they now called scurvy grass. Beaglehole (1967) interprets the description of the latter plant as matching L. oleraceum. Unfortunately, no description or other indication is given to the identity of the former plant which may have been a Rorippa species or, as is more likely, a species of Cochlearia, a genus commonly referred to as scurvy grass within the British Isles and western Europe (Clapham et al. 1962). That Banks and Solander collected Lepidium oleraceum is well documented, and it is this species which is illustrated in the unpublished Banksian plates (Diment et al. 1987). Banks and Solander also collected L. flexicaule Kirk (which they called L. incisum Banks et Sol. ex Hook.f.), although they only found this once "scattered along the beach" at Opuraga, Mercury Bay (Diment et al. 1987; Garnock-Jones & Norton 1995), the Purangi River of today. However, aside from Banks' journals neither species was referred to as scurvy grass. Solander in his unpublished 'Primitiae Florae Novae Zelandiae' included a species with the manuscript name L. frondosum Banks et Sol. which, based on the written description, is clearly what we now refer to as L. oleraceum but again no vernacular name was recorded. The Forsters also collected L. oleraceum, although it was first described by Sparrman (Connor & Edgar 1987) who was with the Forsters on the second voyage in 1780, and not by Forster in 1786 as has usually been supposed. It is not clear from their accounts whether these early botanists reserved the vernacular scurvy grass solely for L. oleraceum. However, by the time the French (under d'Urville) visited New Zealand during the 1820s, vernacular usage of "scurvy grass" was being increasingly confined to L. oleraceum and the morphologically similar L. banksii Kirk which Richard (1832) mistakenly included within L. oleraceum. Kirk (1899) largely resolved the taxonomy of the shrubby coastal Lepidium species. By this time "scurvy grass" was mainly used to refer to L. oleraceum, which has continued to be the predominant usage to the present. Based on these early records it would seem that originally the vernacular scurvy grass, while referring to Lepidium oleraceum, also included other species, mainly in the Brassicaceae. In New Zealand these are likely to have included Rorippa divaricata, R. palustris, and Cardamine species. However, there may have been times when scurvy grass was used more loosely to include Apium prostratum, perhaps Tetragonia species, and Chenopodium glaucum A.Cunn. subsp. ambiguum (R.Br.) Thell. which 419 Banks also notes was "once or twice" used for food (Beaglehole 1962b: 8). The non-specific use of the vernacular scurvy grass in the early days of botanical exploration of New Zealand suggests that we should be cautious in using written historical accounts for assessing changes in species abundance through time. While there is much we can and should learn from these early accounts, we must be cautious in interpreting what the authors actually were referring to in their use of particular vernacular names. In the case of Lepidium oleraceum, it would seem that we have tended to accept too readily historical accounts based on vernacular names in assessing past abundance (e.g., Oliver 1925; Richards 1956; Given 1981; Wilson 1982; Wilson & Given 1989). Certainly Thomas Cheeseman recognised this problem in his assessment of the abundance of L. oleraceum: "On the whole, however, it can hardly be said to be a plentiful species at the present time, whatever its position may have been in Cook's days." Cheeseman (1914). While it is true that historical records are often an invaluable source of information on past abundance, ecology, and distribution of a species, we must be careful not to draw conclusions from such subjective data sources without the benefit of supporting objective data. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We thank Phil Garnock-Jones, Ewen Cameron, Kevin Jones, and Gillian Crowcroft for their comments. REFERENCES Anon. 1993: Some southern Maori plant names. Canterbury Botanical Society journal 27: 20-21. Beaglehole, J. C. 1962a: The Endeavour journal of Joseph Banks 1768-1771. Volume I. Sydney, Trustees of the Public Library of New South Wales. Beaglehole, J. C. 1962b: The Endeavour journal of Joseph Banks 1768-1771. Volume II. 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