Editing Vitex lucens (section)

==Historical use==

===By Māori===
Pūriri in traditional Māori medicine has been used as a rheumatic remedy for centuries. Māori used infusions from boiled leaves to bathe sprains and backache, as a remedy for ulcers, especially under the ear, and for sore throats. The infusion was also used to wash the body of the deceased to help preserve it.<ref name=":6" /> Pūriri trees or groves were often {{lang|mi|[[Tapu (Polynesian culture)|tapu]]}} through their use as burial sites<ref>S.W. Burstal and E.V. Sale (1984) Great trees of New Zealand.</ref> and pūriri leaves were fashioned in to coronets or carried in the hand during a {{lang|mi|[[Tangihanga|tangi]]}} (funeral).<ref name=":6" />

Pūriri timber is usually greenish dark-brown, but sometimes nearly black or streaked with yellow, it was often used for implements and structures requiring strength and durability. Māori preferred other timbers to pūriri as its cross-grain made for difficult carving, but pūriri garden tools and weapons had a long life and legend has it that buckshot used to ricochet off pūriri palisades.<ref>F. Keene (1988) Tai Tokerau.</ref> It was used in the construction of {{lang|mi|[[hīnaki]]}} (eel traps) because it was one of the few timbers that would sink.<ref name=":6" /> Pūriri was sometimes used to dye [[Phormium|flax]] fibres yellow,<ref>R.C. Cooper and R.C. Cambie (1991) New Zealand's economic native plants.</ref> the sawdust can produce intense yellow stains on concrete floors.

The Pūriri provides the strongest wood in New Zealand, allowing to make things such as bridges and paddles from it.

===By Europeans===
[[File:Todd brothers crosscutting puriri trunk, 49275-a.jpg|thumb|Pūriri logging on [[Great Barrier Island]] in 1902]]
[[File:Dev Sharma at the Despatch Box of the House of Commons.jpg|thumb|A pūriri wood [[despatch box]] of the British House of Commons]]

European settlers used great quantities of pūriri timber for fence posts, railway sleepers, shipbuilding and house blocks, as it is ground durable without treatment for 50 years or more.<ref name=":6" /><ref name=":7">F. Newhook (1982) Our trees: A New Zealand Guide.</ref><ref name=":2" /> This, as well as the agricultural desirability of the soil in which it grew, led to the depletion of once widely spread lowland pūriri forests,<ref name=":7" /> and by the mid-1940s the supply of pūriri timber was almost exhausted.<ref name=":8">S.J. Record and R.W. Hess (1943) Timbers of the New World.</ref> Pūriri was also favoured for furniture and decorative wood work such as inlay veneers, as its appearance was "quite equal to the best Italian or American walnut".<ref name=":9">Cheeseman (1906) Manual of the New Zealand flora.</ref> Look at the [https://web.archive.org/web/20060720125029/http://www.nzgeographic.co.nz/ New Zealand Geographic] article on Seuffert & Son to see some good examples of pūriri use in furniture. The produced timber was sometimes called "New Zealand teak",<ref name=":8" /> "New Zealand oak"<ref name=":5" /><ref>R. St Barbe Baker (1965) Famous trees of New Zealand.</ref> or "New Zealand walnut".<ref name=":9" />

The [[despatch box]]es of the British House of Commons are made of pūriri wood. They were a gift from New Zealand to replace the previous boxes after the Chamber was bombed in 1941, during World War Two.<ref>{{cite web |title=Despatch Boxes |url=https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/building/cultural-collections/historic-furniture/the-collection/scott/despatch-boxes-/ |website=About Parliament/Living Heritage |publisher=www.parliament.uk |access-date=10 September 2019}}</ref>