New Zealand Rimu

Rimu Dacrydium cupressinum is a large evergreen coniferous tree native to the forests of New Zealand. It is also known as "red pine", although this name is misleading since it is not a pine, and other trees also have the same name.

Rimu grows throughout New Zealand, on the North Island, South Island and Stewart Island.Rimu matures at around 400 years old and can grow up to 1000 years old ,although most trees are now found on the West Coast of the South Island.

The tree can grow as high as 50 m tall, though most surviving large trees are 20-35 m tall. Male and female cones grow on separate trees, and the fertilised seeds are held on the female tree for 15 months. The breeding cycle of the Kakapo has been linked to rimu's fruiting cycle.

Historically, Rimu and other native trees such as Kauri and Totara were the main sources of wood for New Zealand, including furniture and house construction. However, many of New Zealand's original stands of Rimu have been destroyed, and recent government policies forbid the felling of Rimu in public forests, though allowing limited logging on private land. Pinus radiata has now replaced Rimu in most industries, although Rimu remains popular for the production of high quality wooden furniture.

Captain James Cook made spruce beer from it's young branches as a remedy for scurvy,the scourge of long voyages of his day.The Maoris used it’s bark and gum for medicinal purposes and made torches from strips of timber.

Balding early European settlers tried the juice from it's stems as a hair restorer.

New Zealand Kauri

Agathis australis

Common Names: New Zealand kauri

A narrowly conical tree 40-50 m tall and 3-10 m or more in girth, becoming flat-topped with age. Trunk remarkably cylindrical. Bark ash-grey, mottled purple, in large thick plates. Branches in whorls or irregularly horizontal. Branchlets smooth, glaucous. Buds rounded, with imbricate scales. Juvenile leaves glaucous-green, 5-10 cm long. Adult leaves ovate-lanceolate, 1.5-6 cm long by 10-15 mm wide, green, slightly glaucous beneath near the petiole, obtuse, with 15 parallel nerves and a short petiole. Usually monoecious. Male cones cylindrical, 3-6 cm long by 1 cm wide, on a stout peduncle 1 mm wide; sporophylls imbricate, margin weakly erose. Female cone subglobose, on a short peduncle, 6 cm long by 6-8 cm wide, glaucous-green, scales 1.8 cm long with a short mucronate umbo (1). The reproductive cycle extends over 19-20 months from pollination in October to seed maturity in February or March of the second year following (10).

Range:

North peninsula of North Island, at low elevations (1). Lives in a forest which includes Podocarpus totara, Dacrydium cupressinum, and Podocarpus ferruginoides.

Tane Mahuta (Maori for 'Lord of the Forest'), in Waipoua Forest Sanctuary, pictured here, is commonly claimed to be the largest. It is 40 m tall and 521 cm dbh. A tree in the Coromandel Range is 56.4 m tall, and another tree in Waipoua Forest Sanctuary is 51.5 m tall and 439 cm dbh (8).

About 1000 years. Te Matua Ngahere (Father of the Forest) in Waipoua Forest is claimed, apparently on the basis of no real evidence, to be 2000 years old.

Abundant sub-fossil wood of kauri Agathis australis (Salisb.) is preserved in peat swamps throughout the present distribution of the species in North Island, New Zealand. Analysis of 107 radiocarbon dates on this material shows they fall mainly into two groups. A northern group represents late Pleistocene interstadial forests, while a southern group relates to a mid to late Holocene expansion to the current southern limits of the species at c. 38°S.

Wood growth rates in the interstadial samples, compared to modern trees, suggest that kauri was stressed by lower temperatures and a wetter environment. With further temperature reduction in the late Otiran stadial (last glacial maximum) growth may have been limited to c. four summer months.

The scarcity of kauri pollen from stratigraphic samples and the rarity of wood dating from this period support the contention that kauri was much reduced in abundance during the last glacial maximum"