Before the times of mass-produced, easily accessible materials and foods, humans had a much closer and more direct relationship with the plants in their environment. Raupo, a native but non-endemic New Zealand wetland plant has an extensive repertoire of human uses, particularly by Maori (Riley, 1994). The way in which the people of the land used and relied upon raupo is a very important ethnobotanical relationship in the history of New Zealand, both culturally and economically. [Ethno refers to a race of people or culture (Collins, 2014) and botany is the study of plants (Collins, 2014), Thus, ethnobotany is the (study of) relationships between humans and plants]. Just how important raupo was to the New Zealand people is a lesser known story, overshadowed by New Zealand flora icons such as manuka (Leptospermum scoparium), harakeke (Phormium tenax) and the kauri tree (Agathus australis). The species Typha angustifolia is native to many wetlands of the world including Australia, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and Europe and some of Asia (Tai Awatea, 2014). The family Typhaceae has many similar species in the Northern hemisphere including England and North America (Tai Awatea, 2014). Raupo grows quickly and densely, particularly within the shallow parts of swamplands and marshes which can be considered their naturally occurring environment (Te Ara Encyclopaedia of NZ, 2009). Raupo will also colonise the edges of lakes and brackish wetlands, particularly after a disturbance, associated plants including mangroves and harakeke (Te Ara Encyclopaedia of NZ, 2009). Leaves grow up to two metres high, forming a tightly upright, unbranched main column, often called the stalk or shoot. These leaves are light yet very sturdy, such properties being attributed to their many dense pockets of small air cells inside the leaves (Barber, 2000). Atop the stalk is a cylindrical seed head, reddish brown in colour known as hunehune. This seed head is composed of many dense, tiny pollen seeds that will break down and disperse easily (Angier, 1978), a well-developed reproductive method of monoecious plants. Their other method of spreading is via the roots (koareare), that are very starchy and rhizomatous (Tai Awatea, 2014). Following the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1841, Europeans flooded the New Zealand landscape, bringing with them the negative view of wetlands (Hunt, 2007). Many mistook wetlands for bogs and marshes, the former known to result in the death of persons or animals who waded in to the anoxic mud that is notoriously difficult to escape. Wetlands as a whole suffered greatly for this reason, as differentiation between types had not yet been widely studied, resulting in the ecological value of some wetlands being unrealised (Hunt, 2007). Not only that, these ‘bog lands’ were seen to be unproductive and a waste of what could be pastoral lan