Taranaki wool
One of the more curious Kiwi export products over time must surely have been the Auricularia polytricha, or wood ear fungus.
An early Chinese settler in New Zealand, Chew Chong, saw that grew in harvestable quantities here, particularly in the Taranaki area, presumably on rotting trees (where it flourishes) felled to clear farmland. It became known as "Taranaki wool". The mushrooms, eaten in pre-European times by Maori, were popular in Asia, and were exported from New Zealand until the 1950s.
Bizarrely, most of the wood ear fungus eaten in New Zealand now is actually imported.
* James Russell and Peter Buchanan explored Totara Park in Manurewa in search of fungi.
By James Russell | Email Jameshttp://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=10735632
5:30 AM Sunday Jul 3, 2011
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