Rarely-sighted Māori delicacy found growing on banks of Tukituki River

The pukurau, which has the botanical name of ileodictyon cibarium. Photo / Peter Fleming

It has been a rare sight in recent years, but a damp autumn has provided the perfect growing conditions for the fungus that gives Waipukurau part of its name.

Last week, long-time Waipukurau resident Peter Fleming came across an example of the fungus - called "pukurau" by Māori, who considered it a delicacy – along the banks of Tukituki River.

Despite living in CHB for all but 10 of his 69 years, Fleming said he had never before come across the net-like fungus – which has a botanical name of ileodictyon cibarium, and is commonly known as "white basket fungus".

"I have never seen one before and I spent a good deal of my school years on this area of the river," he said

Fleming found the fungus next to the mountain bike track running in the berms on the Waipukurau side of the Tukituki, about halfway between the quarry and the new swingbridge, near the old Waipukurau Pā site.

According to historian Pat Parsons' book Waipukurau: The History of a Country Town, before eating them, Māori would first soak the fungus in a pool belonging to an ancestor, Ruakuha, which was located near the Pā site.

The pool existed when the Waipukurau block was purchased in 1851 but was believed to have been filled in by silt deposits in the 1867 flood.

Hence, Waipukurau is an abbreviation of Te Waipukurau a Ruakuha.

Though it was widespread in parts of the Southern Hemisphere and found in New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, Fleming said the fungus was "certainly not common" in CHB any more.

"The mayor [Alex Walker] tells me she has a dried specimen on her office desk but I would be very interested to know if anyone else has seen the fungus but not realised its significance."

After Fleming's discovery appeared in the CHB Mail, many other residents reported seeing the fungus – some for the first time, others for the first time in many years.

Waipukurau resident Sheryll Freeman, who lives out of town on Porangahau Rd, said she found the fungus coming up through some wood mulch beneath a ribbon-wood tree.

"We found them a few years ago by our water tanks but this is the first time we've found them under this tree."

Noreen Farrell, from Waipawa, had five or six growing on the wooden fence in her backyard, but she had never seen them in her 20 years living in CHB.

"I had no idea what it was. It looked like white netting. I'd never seen it before."

New CHB resident Lisa Wilson Henare said she didn't know what to make of them when she found them in her garden on Hatuma Rd in Waipukurau.

"At first I thought it was an animal's insides. Then I thought it looked like coral."

Waipukurau garden shop owner Wendy Milne said conditions this autumn had been particularly conducive for the pukurau.

"The autumn was a good one for this particular fungi, with enough rain to dampen without dropping the residual ground temperature, which promotes growth," she said.

A warning to garden chefs; while immature specimens are edible, the mature fungus is described as "foul-smelling" and covered with a layer of slime containing spores on the inner surfaces.