over the passing millennia, our islands, formedoriginally as volcanoes, have acquired a covering of natural vegetation adapted to the region’s tropical climate. during the last millennium, with the arrival of early Polynesians, a large variety of useful plants was purposefully introduced by these irst human colonists. Polynesians considerably enriched the natural lora, which, while possessing certain species unique to the islands, was in fact relatively poor in terms of overall species diversity. a number of the introduced plants lourished in the local climate (‘uru, taro, sugar cane, sweet potato etc.) including tī, as it is called in tahitian, its’scientiic name is Cordyline fruticosa, with numerous common names including tiplant, cabbage tree and palm lily. in the lateeighteenth century, when european navigators discovered the islands in their turn, they did not fail to notice the important role that these shrubs played in the life of the islands’inhabitants, from the australs to the marquesas, through the tuamotu and society islands. Both a source of nourishment and healing, tī also had other domestic uses : as decoration, clothing etc. But more signiicantly it was a NATURE ceremonial plant, playing an important role in certain religious rites. even today, the plant is still found in many gardens, as hedges, the leaves being used to make traditional costumes for festivals, such as the heiva. While the ti-plant originated from southeast asia, it also occurs in australia, new caledonia and a number of central Paciic island (fiji, samoa), marking the wake of the ancestors who colonized french Polynesia’s ive archipelagos. their paths passed via hawaii, new zealand and rapa nui (easter island), the three corners of the « Polynesian triangle » ; delimiting the Polynesian cultural zone, established by these sea-faring people, in the middle of the Paciic. the tiplant can grow to the height of a small tree and is characterized by the presence of bunches of elliptical leaves, colored green, yellow or red (and sometimes variegated). some thirty diferent varieties are known, prized for diferent uses and distinguished by their form, size, color, dimensions of the leaves, or size of the root tuber. the plants’fundamental place in Polynesian culture is comparable with the ‘uru (breadfruit) or Pandanus (screw-pine). here is a selection of its traditional and contemporary uses. dans l’archiPel des gamBier, un costume de danse réalisé à Partir de ‘autī/A dANCe CosTume iN The gAmBiers ArChipelAgo, mAde From ‘AuTī. Benthouard.com 49