dwarf cabbage tree

Cordyline pumilio is a plant rarely exceeding 2 metres (6.6 feet) tall. It is a very narrow-leaved species, and does not develop into the large tree-like form of C. australis. It often flowers while its short stem is leafy to the ground. In older plants the bare part of stem is up to 1 metre (3.3 feet) long and 1.5 cm (less than an inch) wide, and not usually very erect. The leaves are 30 cm to 1 metre (1–3 ft) long and 1 to 2 cm (up to an inch) wide, and may narrow above the base into a channelled petiole. The midrib is prominent abaxially, or at least proximally and the leaf margins are slightly recurved. The flower spike or panicle appears in November or December and is up to 60 by 30 cm (1.97 by 0.98 ft), very open with slender axes, branched to the second order, with small white or bluish-white flowers irregularly scattered along the branches. The bracts are often small and inconspicuous. The tepals are narrow, recurved and have three nerves. The stigma is short and trifid.

Cordyline pumilio was cultivated by Māori in the Waikato district and elsewhere all over New Zealand. Young seedlings were carefully selected and planted out, and after perhaps three years the roots were dug up, stacked in small piles, and dried in the sun. As they dried, the fibrous roots were burned off, and then the roots were scraped and baked slowly in an umu or hāngī, requiring twelve to eighteen hours to cook. The cooked roots were chewed, or pounded and washed and squeezed to extract the sugar, which was eaten with fern root as a relish. Māori ranked the taste of the plant above tī kōuka (C. australis) and the other native species, but below tī pore (Cordyline fruticosa) which they brought with them from tropical Polynesia.