Puriri

Vitex lucens

To complete

The Puriri of the Tangihua forest are found……

Along most of the tracks and the nature trail.

Puriri trees have a number of unusual features

The puriri trees can regenerate from branches and logs. Many unusual looking puriri trees have regenerated from stumps, logs or branches. Puriri posts or poles have been known to take root and spout branches.

Puriri  can live as long as 2000 years, longer than Kauri and are fire resistant so tend to survive where Kauri may not.

Puriri trunks often have large knobbly protrusions on them.

Puriri tree description

Puriri trees grow up to 20m with a broad spreading crown. The thin bark is usually smooth and light brown in colour, and can also be very flaky.

Puriri will grow differently in different environments.In forest areas Puriri tend to grow tall with a straight trunk with few branches up to 15m where in open area they tend to be lower gnarled and more spread out.

Puriri was actively and selectively logged in the past to provide timber for a wide range of uses. Only the best trees were felled, leaving the gnarled puriri often found on farm paddocks.

Flowers and leaves

The dark green glossy leaves of puriri have five or more leaves all radiating from one point (palmate), sometimes there are only three. The lowest two leaflets are smaller than the other three.

The leaflets have domatia, (little pockets where the mid vein and branching veins meet).  Nobody is quite sure what the domatia are for. The underside and veins are a lighter green. Seedling leaves are much more delicate and a lighter green and have serrations along the edge

Puriri  flowers have a range of colours. fluorescent pink, dark red, rose pink (most common) or sometimes even to a white flower.

The Puriri flower is tube shaped and produces copious amounts of nectar. The hairs at the base of the flower tube all point towards birds pollinating this flower (the hairs stop insects from stealing the nectar).

The flower has 4 lobes (made of 2 petals), 4 long stamen  (the male part of the flower). The style grows to be as long as the stamen after the pollen has shed. It is interesting to see how the flowers open. The petals overlap each other in the bud form. The growing stamen push the petals open. When the flower is fully open the style starts growing and reaches its full length just after the anthers on the stamen have shed all the pollen. The flowers occur in loose clusters of up to 12 flowers per cluster.

Some flowers can be found on the Puriri all year round, though it does flower most heavily over winter. Ripe fruit can also be found all year round, but is more common over the summer.

The fruit  ranges from a bright red (usually) to a pale yellow (rarely, and only on white flowered trees) and can grow as big as a cherry,.

When broken, the fruit has a bright thin juice, and a faint grape smell. Puriri fruit is not the most nutritious sort in the New Zealand bush (high in carbohydrates, not lipids, sugars or calcium), but it is always there. The nut (endocarp ) inside the drupe is a very hard pear-shaped kernel andcan contain up to 4 seeds. The seedlings from one kernel can germinate at the same time or be spread over a year.

The Puriri is self-fertile with self fertilization (autogamy ) possible.

Puriri place in the ecosystem

Puriri is a climax species but because it is reasonably fire resistant and can regenerated from stumps it is sometiomes in the first stage as well.

Puriri is a very important tree for native birds in the top half of the North Island as it provides both fruit and nectar in seasons when few other species produce these.

Puriri in the bush provide a home for a wide range  of climbers and epiphytes

Puriri is also important as a host for a number of specific species.

Puriri moths

The puriri moth  is New Zealands largestwith a potential wing span up to 15 cm. Its 10 cm long larvae , though not restricted to puriri, often makes its home in the tree by excavating long 7-shaped burrows.

Significance to Moari

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.

Puriri trees or groves were often tapu through their use as burial sites or ta polace to lkeave a bodt to decompose untill prior to the cleaning of the bones. Puriri leaves were fashioned in to coronets or carried in the hand during a  tangi.

P uriri 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. The Maori preferred other timbers to puriri as its cross-grain made for difficult carving, but puriri garden tools and weapons had a long life and legend has it that buckshot used to ricochet off puriri palisades.  It was used in the construction of  hinaki  (eel traps) because it was one of the few timbers that would sink.  Puriri was sometimes used to dye  flax  fibres yellow,  the sawdust can produce intense yellow stains on concrete floors.

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

European use

Puriri wood is extremely hard, dense, and heavy, it is difficult to work because of the interlacing fibres. Puriri was used for timber for fence posts, railway sleepers, shipbuilding and house blocks, as it is ground durable without treatment for 50 years or more.

Extremely hard it is difficult to hammer nails or staples into

the timber is a lovely yellow and light brown and used for wood turning and bowls. The  gnarled boughs are often cleaned and used for display

Threats and conservation plan

The greatest threat to Puriri is from possums which eat the leaves, buds, flowers and young shoots of the tree. Because ot Puriris regenerative powers it takes a ling time for possums to kill them.

Solution

Adequate pest control

References