Kahikatea

Dacrycarpus dacrydioides – White pine

Endemic to New Zealand

The Kahikatea Tangihua forest are found……

The Kaihikatea of the Tangihua forest are common in the wetter areas. They can be seen from the lodge road just as you enter the bush in a swampy patch on the left and by the creek at the culvert to the lodge

Kahikatea one of the tallest trees in the Tangihua forest

Kahikatea often grows to a height of 55 metres and 80m high trees have been recorded. They grow tall and straight and shedding their lower branches as they grow older.

Kahikatea has an ancient lineage

Kahikatea have been around for more than160 million years and are the oldest member of the Podocarp family. They are referred to as the dinosaur trees because they existed alongside the dinosaurs during the Jurassic period.

This was a time when neither birds nor flowering plants had evolved so the Kahikatea’s fruits were probably eaten and the seeds spread by flying dinosaurs, commonly known as pterodactyls.

An individual Kahikatea and can live for over 500 years.

Kahikatea play an important role in the ecosystem

Kahikatea can support entire ecosystems on their trunks and branches. Scientist once found 28 different plants living on one tree.

Examples are

• lianes (twining and climbing plants) like supplejack, kiekie, and our native passionfruit and native jasmine.
• The perching orchid, Drymoanthus adversus, they can be spotted by its white thread-like roots that spread over the trunk.

Kaihikatea stands provide permanent or seasonal homes for a wide range of native and introduced animal species. They are also important feeding areas for mobile species like Tui or Kereru.

Kahikatea clearance

Kahikatea was one of the most common New Zealand native trees. Timber milling, land clearance and the draining of swamps had a major impact.

Although Kahikatea is not good for building timber as it tends to rot because it had no smell and would not taint food it was used to make boxes for the exporting butter in the 1880s. Demand was so great that many of the forests were wiped out.

Kahikatea Flowers and fruit

There are no flowers

Kahikatea like all Coniferous trees do not produce flowers, but produce male, pollen-bearing cones and female, seed-bearing cones. Kahikatea have separate male and female trees which is unusual for Coniferous trees.

A male tree glows a faint orange when the cones are mature, a female red when its berry-like receptacles are ripe.

Picture

the seeds are at the end of branchlets supported by cone like structures. They are 4-5mm and turn orange when ripe. They are eaten by birds who distribute the seeds

Significance to Maori

Kahikatea had many uses.

The fleshy berry or koroi was an important food resource, and was served at feasts in great amounts.

The wood was also favored for making bird spears. Soot obtained from burning the heartwood supplied a pigment for traditional tattooing (tā moko ).

The Kahikatea has three stages,

The Kahikatea has three stages, juvenile, semi-adult and adult. The juvenile, semi-adult and adult foliage stages often be seen on the same tree

Stage