Introduction
*Mutie in Western Polynesia
*Matie in Eastern Polynesia
*Mātiatia (as Mānienie) in Hawai'i
*Matie and *Mātiatia in Aotearoa
A Note about Grasses
Gallery
The Proto-Polynesian terms and most of their modern cognates are generic terms that do not refer to any grass in particular; they probably referred originally to any grass that could easily be walked over or through, and as new grasses were introduced after contact with Europe and the Americas their range was widened to include adventitious lawn grasses and similar herbage. In some places, for example attols and Aotearoa, a word could in fact be applied to mainly one grass simply because that was the only suitable referent encountred in the early days of settlement. In other places the same word might cover several diferent species without specifically denoting any particular one of them.
After European and American traders and settlers arrived, many new grasses were introduced throughout Polynesia, some of which were given local names of their own, others covered by the general term or a modification of it. An excellent talk on the history of grass introductions in Hawai'i (which parallels the similar history of the introduction of pasture grasses in Aotearoa) was given by Kevin Faccenda, a PhD graduate of the University of Hawai'i and now a researcher at the Bishop Museum, at the Amy Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden in 2026 -- you can read about and watch it on this link. He also maintains an excellent website of native and introduced grasses found in Hawai'i, as well as being a regular contributor to iNaturalist.
*Mutie in Western Polynesia
Throughout Western Polynesia reflexes of Proto Polynesian *Mutie (Musie in Tonga, Motie in Niue, Mutia in Samoa and Tokelau, and Mutie elsewhere) refer to grasses in general, including the lawn grasses introduced over the last two centuries. One of the original *Mutie would certainly have been the sand-binding grass Lepturus repens, a pan-tropical grass which occurs throughout Polynesia from Ontong Java and Tonga in the West to the Papahanaoumokuakea attols in the far North of Hawai'i and in the South on the Kermadec Islands, the northernmost extremity of Aotearoa. There is a little more about this grass in the section on Eastern Polynesia (where *Mutie becames *Matie or *Mātiatia), below.
 Another widely distributed grass with no specific local names which seems to have arrived in Polynesia ahead of people is the tropical beach grass, Thuarea involuta (illustrated on the left), a Southeast Asian species which ranges natively as far as the Tuamotus. This is a perennial mat-forming grass with long creeping culms that root at the nodes, usually with a single root.
The green or yellowish-green leaf blades are 2-6 cm long by 3-10 mm wide, tapering from the broader base. The flowering culms are 5-20 cm long. When it has finished flowering the inflorescence is enclosed in a leaf on the stem, making a watertight, bouyant seedcase. It prefers light shade, and is often found on coastal coral sands under coconut trees and along tracks. The grass often forms large prostrate mats. In Samoa it is found on sandy shores, never far from the sea. It is common in the Southern Cook Islands but has not been reported from the Northern Cooks. It is one of the few grasses widespread in other parts of Polynesia that has not eventually made its way to Hawai'i; it was reportedly collected in Honolulu in 1852, but this seems to have been an error, as it has not been seen there since. In Tonga it is found on beaches and along the shoreline on Tongatapu, Vava'u and many of the smaller islands.
 Eleusine indica is a pan-tropical grass thought to have been an accidental Polynesian introduction to Polynesia, and was probably one of the original *mutie; in Hawai'i it is known as mānienie ali'i. This is a pale green annual grass with both prostrate and ascending culms, usually much-branched at the base. The narrow leaf blades are 15-20 cm long by 4-10 mm wide. It has crowded one-sided flower spikes, up to 10 in a set with one rising from the culm below the others.
This species is common in Samoa, where it is one of the few grasses to have a specific name -- ta'ata'a. There it is found in sunny dsturbed places along dirt roads and tracks, from sea level to 930 m. In the Cook Islands it is widely distributed in both the Southern and Northern islands. It is common in open places, arable land and disturbed areas, and has been called a "troublesome weed" in Rarotonga. In Hawai'i it is found in shallow, compacted soil from sea level to 760 m. on most of the main islands; it is also found on Midway and Kure attols. It is frequent throughout Tonga, where it is regarded as a weed in plantations and waste areas.
 Chrysopogon aciculatus is another probably accidental Polynesian introduction to Samoa and other parts of Polynesia (Wagner et al. regard it as indigenous or a very early introduction to Hawai'i). This is a creeping perennial grass with stout stolons covered with broad, scale-like sheaths and culms 10-25 cm long with leaves mostly crowded near the base. The leaf blades are 2-8 cm long by 3 to 7 mm wide with margins that are often wavy. The inflorescence is a many-branched panicle with branches up to 2 cm long, each with 2 flowers on stalks and one without a stalk. The florets are shining dark red (hence the Hawaiian name mānienie 'ula). The barbed points of the spikelets alow them to cling to clothing and animal fur.
In Tonga it has a local name, matapekapeka, and frequents especially open grassy areas. In Samoa it grows in lawns, streambeds and fernlands, especially on normally dry soil. It has no local name in Samoa, but is found on most islands. In Hawai'i it is found in dry, exposed areas especially on slopes and ridges from 15-520 m above sea level on the larger islands except Maui. In the Southern Cooks it is sometimes known as piripiri or tuakura, and is found on lawns and grassy areas, especially near villages, and sometimes in plantations and waste places. This grass is known as ko'eko'e, kokekoke or 'oke'oke in the Marquesas, where it is found on seven of the islands in grazed areas and along trails, ridges and cliffs from sea level to 800 m.
*Matie in Eastern Polynesia
Lepturus repens is probanly the archetypical *mutie/*matie as it is found throughout Polynesia, although it skips the main Hawaiian islands and gets only as far as the Kermadecs in Aotearoa. As a word denoting grasses in general Proto-Polynesian *mutie becomes matie in most of Eastern Polynesia, with variants mātie and mātiatia in Aotearoa and mānienie and māniania in Hawai'i. Probably because of the dearth of familiar grasses in Hawai'i and Aotearoa, the reflexes of the Proto-Polynesian words took on more restricted meanings in these outposts, and were replaced by mau'u (from *mahuku) and otaota respectively referring to grasses (and some other herbage) in general. However it has to be remembered that "grass" is a multivalent term, and there are limits to how far it and its equivalents will stretch in ordinary language. Even where it is unequivocally a term for grass in general, matie may not include sugar cane or bamboo, which are grasses to botanists but probably not thought of as grasses in most contexts by members of the general public.
 Lepturus repens is a perennial grass with branched stolons. The culms may be spread out, grouped in tufts, or erect, anything from 10 to 60 cm tall. The blades are stiff and flat, with a smooth, waxy surface, up to about 25 cm long and 2-10 mm wide. The stolons have dense bunches of roots at every node. This helps the plant to be a very effective sand binder.The flower spikes are straight or slightly curved, 3 to 20 cm long, with a single spike to every stem.
In the Cook Islands Lepturus repens is common to abundant near the sea, often the first flowering plant to be encountered above the high tide zone, and quite likely to be the only grass present on small attols. In Tonga it is similarly "frequent along the strand". In Samoa, as elsewhere, it is confined to littoral habitats. In Tahiti it is probably the original matie maohi ("native grass"), and may also have been given the name matie tahatai ("seaside grass"), although Art Whistler suspects that the medicinal qualities attributed to a grass of that name may actually refer to a denizen of salt-water mudflats, Paspalum vaginatum, known as mauku tahatai in Rarotonga and mutie tai in the Marquesas. Paspalum vaginatum is regarded as an introduced environmental weed in Aotearoa. It was first collected in Hawai'i in 1936 and has become naturalized in shallow brackish water and brackish sand on O'ahu, Kauai'i and Hawai'i.
*Mātiatia (as Mānienie) in Hawai'i
The reduplicated form of the Proto-Polynesian word, which appears as Mōtietie in Niuean is reflected in Hawaiian as māniania or (more often these days) mānienie and in Māori as mātiatia. In Hawaiian it may once have referred to grasses in general, but now appears as the principal component in the names of some frequently encountered native and exotic grasses; grasses in general are referred to as mau'u, a word derived from Proto-Polynesian *mahuku, denoting grass and miscellanious small herbage, like Māori otaota. Among the mau'u is the grass Setigera digitata, known also in Hawai'i as kūkae pua'a, and featured among the many plants with names incorporating reflexes of Proto Eastern Polynesian *Tūtae "dung, excrement". David Malo (Hawaiian Antiquities 9.22) regards mānienie as a kind of grass (mau'u) introduced to Hawai'i from Mexico or South America by Vancouver, which "makes a fine lawn grass". Unfortunately, there are no further clues as to which particular grass he is referring.
 Three of the six species now known as mānienie in Hawa'i are the ancient Polynesian introductions described above. Two others are known to have been nineteenth-century introductions. This leaves the last, Sporobolus virginicus, a grass native to Hawaii but also found in North America, and known as mānienie maoli (native mānienie) or mānienie mahikihiki (a reference to grasses which can be used for counteracting evil spirits limiting the supply of mahiki shrimps). Kevin Faccenda told me that this grass is very likely to have been the archetypical mānienie as it would have been one of the first grasses encountered by the early Hawaiians.
Mānienie maoli is a perennial grass spreading by stiff, scaly rhizomes, with freely branching culms up to 90 cm long. The leaves are rather rough and turned inwards -- the leaf blades 4-14 cm long by 2-5 mm wide. The flowers are borne in dense panicules at the end of the culms, 2-9 cm long by 3-10 mm in diameter. It is native to sandy coastal dunes and other coastal sites, growing from just above the high tide mark on all the main islands and on Midway and Laysan attols.
*Matie and *Mātiatia in Aotearoa
 The dune-binding grass Poa billardierei may well have been the first grass encountered by the first Polynesian arrivals to Aotearoa. It seems to have become the only grass referred to by names mātie and mātiatia corresponding to the East Poynesian generic terms. This grass was once widespread in sandy and rocky coastal areas throughout Aotearoa including Rēkohu (the Chatham Islands). It is now seriously endangered in northern parts of the country, and has disappeared from Rēkohu, through a combination of grazing by sheep, goats, cattle and horses, all of which have found it palatable, along with competition from the introduced marram grass (Calamagrostis arenaria), coastal development and the depredations of four-wheeled drive vehicles. Where it is not disturbed the mātie acts as a very effective dune stabilizer.
The plant forms yellow-green tussocks up to about 70 cm tall; the very narrow leaf blades are 10-60 cm long, rolled inwards and about 1 mm in diameter. They become silvery at the tips as they age and dry to a golden straw colour. The culms bearing the inflorescence are slightly shorter than the longer leaves, up to about 60 cm tall.
A note about grasses
 The August 2026 Nature Notice from iNaturalist had as its theme "There's beauty in grass", with an account of the work of the Hawaiian scientist Kevin Faccenda and his efforts to pull the "cloak of invisibility" away from grasses. Grasses for millennia have been extaordinarily important sources of basic nutrition (millet, wheat, oats, rice, maize and other grains), building materials (bamboo for construction, grass for thatching), tools (bamboo knives and fishing poles) and other purposes, but they are often overlooked and only a few are widely known by name.
In Aotearoa before the 19th Century, grasses were of less importance to people than in most other parts of the world as other local materials fulfilled most of their functions. This changed rapidly however after the introduction of wheat and corn, and grazing livestock. So far botanists have distinguished over 12,300 species of grass (members of the family Poaceae) internationally, divided into 825 genera. In Aotearoa there are about 500 recognized kinds of established grasses of which close to 60% are exotic, many of the latter associated with pastoral farming. The Landcare NZ database lists 444 species and 4 hybrid taxa, and the NZPCN database includes profiles of 518 species, subspecies and named varieties, of which 223 are indigenous. Many of the exotic species are featured on the Hawaiian database mentioned in the introduction to this page -- some in fact were re-exported from Aotearoa to Hawai'i for agricultural use.
Grasses are wind-pollinated, and the individual flowers (florets) are borne in spikelets, like that of Chrysopogon aciculatus illustrated above, left (a detail from the photograph of the whole panicle in the gallery below). There are usually several florets to a spikelet, protected by leaf-like bracts known technically as glumes. Grass flowers are usually bisexual, with the male anthers often brighly coloured (although almost invisible from a distance because of their small size) and female stigmas like feather dusters to catch the airborne pollen. Some species have a mix of male and female florets, and in others the anthers will atrophy before the stigmas develop. The spikelets are grouped in spikes, racemes or panicles on the culms: there is a good brief introduction to the structure of grass inflorescences on the University of Indiana website, and further information with beautiful 3-d photographs of the flowers of five New Zealand grass species (and glasses for viewing them supplied) in the magnificently illustrated book He Puāwai, A Natural History of New Zealand Flowers by Philip Garnock-Jones (Auckland University Press, 2025).
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