Approximately 5-10cm high, eco-sourced from native bush in West Auckland. Larger and smaller sized trees available - please enquire.

New Zealand’s tallest forest tree, the kahikatea (Dacrycarpus dacrydioides), once dominated the forests that covered much of New Zealand’s swampy lowland areas. Far from a solitary tree, the kahikatea groups closely with other kahikatea, intertwining its buttressed roots with its neighbours for support in the unstable swampy ground. (It is perhaps for this reason that the kahikatea has evolved with such a tall, straight trunk with no lower branches, to enable it to “huddle” with others for stability.) In autumn, throughout the lowlands of New Zealand, numerous forest birds chattered noisily in its canopy, feeding on its abundant red berries. These berries, called koroi, were also a valued food source for Maori, who skillfully climbed up the smooth branchless trunks to harvest them. Captain Cook and his companions had great hopes for this 60 metre high giant when they first encountered it along the banks of the Waihou River, and named it “white pine”, reflecting their confidence in its suitability as timber.

But, in addition to their blissful disregard for its pivotal ecological role in the swamp forests of lowland New Zealand (irrelevant in any case if one’s plan for colonisation involves the wholesale destruction of the ecosystem itself), they were also unaware of the fact that the kahikatea is an ancient survivor from the Jurassic period, evidenced by geologists’ discoveries of its pollen and leaves in Jurassic rocks, some 160 -180 million years old.

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