''Dacrycarpus dacrydioides'', commonly known as kahikatea (from
Māori
Māori or Maori can refer to:
Relating to the Māori people
* Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group
* Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand
* Māori culture
* Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...
) and white pine, is a
coniferous
Conifers are a group of cone-bearing seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single extant class, Pinopsida. All extant ...
tree
endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...
to
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
. A
podocarp
Podocarpaceae is a large family of mainly Southern Hemisphere conifers, known in English as podocarps, comprising about 156 species of evergreen trees and shrubs.James E. Eckenwalder. 2009. ''Conifers of the World''. Portland, Oregon: Timber Pr ...
, it is New Zealand's tallest tree, gaining heights of 60 m and a life span of 600 years. It was first described botanically by the French botanist
Achille Richard
Achille Richard was a French botanist, botanical illustrator and physician (27 April 1794 in Paris – 5 October 1852).
Biography
Achille was the son of the botanist Louis-Claude Marie Richard (1754–1821). He was a pharmacist in the Frenc ...
in 1832 as ''Podocarpus'' ''dacrydioides'', and was given its current
binomial name
In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...
''Dacrycarpus dacrydioides'' in 1969 by the American botanist
David de Laubenfels. Analysis of DNA has confirmed its evolutionary relationship with other species in the genera ''
Dacrycarpus
''Dacrycarpus'' is a genus of conifers belonging to the family Podocarpaceae.Christopher N. Page. 1990. "Podocarpaceae" pages 332-346. In: Klaus Kubitzki (general editor); Karl U. Kramer and Peter S. Green (volume editors) ''The Families and Gene ...
'' and ''
Dacrydium
''Dacrydium'' is a genus of conifers belonging to the podocarp family Podocarpaceae. Sixteen species of evergreen dioecious trees and shrubs are presently recognized. The genus was first described by Solander in 1786, and formerly included many m ...
''.
In traditional
Māori culture
Māori culture () is the customs, cultural practices, and beliefs of the indigenous Māori people of New Zealand. It originated from, and is still part of, Polynesians, Eastern Polynesian culture. Māori culture forms a distinctive part of Cul ...
, it is an important source of timber for the building of
waka
Waka may refer to:
Culture and language
* Waka (canoe), a Polynesian word for canoe; especially, canoes of the Māori of New Zealand
** Waka ama, a Polynesian outrigger canoe
** Waka hourua, a Polynesian ocean-going canoe
** Waka taua, a Māori w ...
and making of tools, of food in the form of its berries, and of dye. When Europeans discovered it in the 18th century they found large remnant stands in both the North and South Islands, despite burning of forest by early Māori. Its use for timber and its damp fertile habitat, ideal for
dairy farming
Dairy farming is a class of agriculture for long-term production of milk, which is processed (either on the farm or at a dairy plant, either of which may be called a dairy
A dairy is a business enterprise established for the harvesting or ...
, have led to its decimation almost everywhere except
South Westland
Westland District is a territorial authority district on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island. It is administered by the Westland District Council. The district's population is
History
Westland was originally a part of Canterbury Pro ...
.
Kahikatea seeds have fleshy structures called
receptacles attached to them, which encourage birds such as
kererū
The kererū (''Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae'') or New Zealand pigeon is a species of pigeon native to New Zealand. Johann Friedrich Gmelin described the bird in 1789 as a large, conspicuous pigeon up to in length and in weight, with a white br ...
and
tūī
The tūī (''Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae'') is a boisterous medium-sized bird native to New Zealand. It is blue, green, and bronze colored with a distinctive white throat tuft. It is an endemic passerine bird of New Zealand, and the only spe ...
to eat them and disperse the seeds. The water storage ability of this structures may also be to protect seeds from drying out. It supports many smaller plants in its own branches, which are called
epiphyte
An epiphyte is an organism that grows on the surface of a plant and derives its moisture and nutrients from the air, rain, water (in marine environments) or from debris accumulating around it. The plants on which epiphytes grow are called phoroph ...
s; 100 different species have been recorded on one tree alone.
Description
The kahikatea is a
conifer
Conifers are a group of conifer cone, cone-bearing Spermatophyte, seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the phylum, division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single ...
ous tree reaching a height of , making it the tallest New Zealand tree, with a trunk through. It has a 600 year life span and gains maturity after between 250 and 450 years.
Near the base of the tree, the roots are typically
buttressed
A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral (si ...
and grooved. The wood itself is odourless and white. The majority of the trunk is branchless—in adults around three quarters—and has grey or dark grey coloured bark which falls off thickly in flakes. Young adults have no branches in a third to a half of the trunk and have a conic shape.
In juveniles the leaves are 3–7 (reaching 4 mm in young adults) by 0.5–1 mm and a dark green to red colour that come to a marked point. They are narrow, arranged in almost opposite pairs spreading away from a wider base, and curved like a
scythe
A scythe ( ) is an agricultural hand tool for mowing grass or harvesting crops. It is historically used to cut down or reap edible grains, before the process of threshing. The scythe has been largely replaced by horse-drawn and then tractor m ...
. In adulthood the leaves change dramatically and are a brown-green colour and just 1–2 mm long, waxy, and grow overlapping one another tightly.
As a conifer, the kahikatea has no flowers and instead has
cones
A cone is a three-dimensional geometric shape that tapers smoothly from a flat base (frequently, though not necessarily, circular) to a point called the apex or vertex.
A cone is formed by a set of line segments, half-lines, or lines conn ...
. Male cones, which occur on different trees to female ones, are 1 cm long and rectangular. The pollen is a pale yellow colour and has a three-pored or trisaccate shape that is distinctive in the New Zealand flora and so can be identified easily. The fruit is highly modified with a yellow-orange fleshy
receptacle that is 2.5–6.5 mm long. The purple-black seed is roughly spherical and 4–6 mm in diameter. Both the seed and the ovary are covered with a thin layer of wax.
The kahikatea has a
diploid
Ploidy () is the number of complete sets of chromosomes in a cell, and hence the number of possible alleles for autosomal and pseudoautosomal genes. Sets of chromosomes refer to the number of maternal and paternal chromosome copies, respectively ...
chromosome count of 20.
File:Dacrycarpus dacrydioides male cones.jpg, Male cones with pollen
File:Dacrycarpus dacrydioides female cones.jpg, Female cones beginning to fruit
File:Dacrycarpus dacrydioides cones2.jpg, Ripe fruit
File:Dacrycarpus dacrydioides young adult.jpg, Young adult's conical growth habit
Phytochemistry
Several different
glycoside
In chemistry, a glycoside is a molecule in which a sugar is bound to another functional group via a glycosidic bond. Glycosides play numerous important roles in living organisms. Many plants store chemicals in the form of inactive glycosides. ...
s have been isolated from the leaves; the
tricetin
Tricetin is a flavone, a type of flavonoid. It is a rare aglycone found in the pollen of members of the Myrtaceae, subfamily Leptospermoideae, such as ''Eucalyptus globulus''. This compound shows anticancer effects on human breast adenocarcinoma ...
3’,5’-di-O-/β-glucopyranoside and 3’-0-β-xylopyranoside have been found only in the kahikatea. The receptacles and seeds have been found to contain
anthocyanin
Anthocyanins (), also called anthocyans, are water-soluble vacuolar pigments that, depending on their pH, may appear red, purple, blue, or black. In 1835, the German pharmacist Ludwig Clamor Marquart gave the name Anthokyan to a chemical compo ...
s, rare in
gymnosperm
The gymnosperms ( lit. revealed seeds) are a group of seed-producing plants that includes conifers, cycads, ''Ginkgo'', and gnetophytes, forming the clade Gymnospermae. The term ''gymnosperm'' comes from the composite word in el, γυμνό ...
s, which it was suggested in one 1988 paper make the fruit as a whole more attractive to prospective animal dispersers.
Taxonomy
The kahikatea was first described in 1832 by the French botanist
Achille Richard
Achille Richard was a French botanist, botanical illustrator and physician (27 April 1794 in Paris – 5 October 1852).
Biography
Achille was the son of the botanist Louis-Claude Marie Richard (1754–1821). He was a pharmacist in the Frenc ...
in his ''Essai d'une Flore de la Nouvelle Zélande'' (Essay On The Flora of New Zealand) as ''Podocarpus'' ''dacrydioides''.
There is an earlier record given in the 1825 issue of ''Mémoires du Muséum d'histoire naturelle'' as ''Podocarpus thujoides'', but it lacks a description. It was
superfluously named ''Dacrydium excelsum'' by
Allan Cunningham in the 1838 issue of
Annals of Natural History, and transferred to the genus ''
Nageia
''Nageia'' is a genus of conifers belonging to the podocarp family Podocarpaceae.Christopher N. Page. 1990. "Podocarpaceae" pages 332-346. In: Klaus Kubitzki (general editor); Karl U. Kramer and Peter S. Green (volume editors) ''The Families and ...
'' by
Otto Kuntze
Carl Ernst Otto Kuntze (23 June 1843 – 27 January 1907) was a German botanist.
Biography
Otto Kuntze was born in Leipzig.
An apothecary in his early career, he published an essay entitled ''Pocket Fauna of Leipzig''. Between 1863 and 1866 he ...
in 1891. It was given its current
binomial name
In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...
, ''Dacrycarpus dacrydioides,'' in 1969 by American botanist
David de Laubenfels.
Etymology
''Dacrycarpus'' means tear shaped fruit, and the specific epithet ''dacrydioides'' is after its similarity to species in the genus ''
Dacrydium
''Dacrydium'' is a genus of conifers belonging to the podocarp family Podocarpaceae. Sixteen species of evergreen dioecious trees and shrubs are presently recognized. The genus was first described by Solander in 1786, and formerly included many m ...
''.
Common names include kahikatea, from the
Māori language
Māori (), or ('the Māori language'), also known as ('the language'), is an Eastern Polynesian language spoken by the Māori people, the indigenous population of mainland New Zealand. Closely related to Cook Islands Māori, Tuamotuan, and ...
, and white pine. Other Māori names recorded by 19th century
ethnographers
Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...
include: katea, kaikatea, koroī, kōaka, kahika, and the name kāī (for the young tree).
Evolution
A 2022 study in ''
Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution
''Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal of evolutionary biology and phylogenetics. The journal is edited by E.A. Zimmer.
Indexing
The journal is indexed in:
*EMBiology
*Journal Citation Reports
*Scopus
...
'', found a
phylogeny
A phylogenetic tree (also phylogeny or evolutionary tree Felsenstein J. (2004). ''Inferring Phylogenies'' Sinauer Associates: Sunderland, MA.) is a branching diagram or a tree showing the evolutionary relationships among various biological spec ...
, or evolutionary tree, in which kahikatea is found to be within a ''Darcydioid''
clade
A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, ...
. This group of species that share a common ancestor also gave rise to the other ''Dacrycarpus'' species as well as those in the genus
''Darcydium''. They suggested it diverged from a common ancestor around 60 million years ago, in the early
paleogene
The Paleogene ( ; British English, also spelled Palaeogene or Palæogene; informally Lower Tertiary or Early Tertiary) is a geologic period, geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period million yea ...
. This is represented in the cladogram below.
Distribution and habitat
The kahikatea is
endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...
to the
North
North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography.
Etymology
T ...
,
South
South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west.
Etymology
The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...
, and
Stewart Islands of New Zealand. It inhabits mostly lowland forests between 0 and 600m above sea level, though may in rare cases reach
montane
Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is a crucial ...
areas. It used to dominate a swamp forest type that now exists almost only on the
South Westland
Westland District is a territorial authority district on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island. It is administered by the Westland District Council. The district's population is
History
Westland was originally a part of Canterbury Pro ...
region of the South Island.
Kahikatea prefers flooded or
alluvial
Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Alluv ...
soils with low levels of drainage,
which in Westland occur from post glaciation events.
Ecology
Dispersal
Under optimal circumstances a mature kahikatea can produce of fruit, equivalent to 4.5 million seeds, in a year. The fruit contains a special fleshy structure called a receptacle which helps attract birds such as the
kererū
The kererū (''Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae'') or New Zealand pigeon is a species of pigeon native to New Zealand. Johann Friedrich Gmelin described the bird in 1789 as a large, conspicuous pigeon up to in length and in weight, with a white br ...
,
tūī
The tūī (''Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae'') is a boisterous medium-sized bird native to New Zealand. It is blue, green, and bronze colored with a distinctive white throat tuft. It is an endemic passerine bird of New Zealand, and the only spe ...
, and
bellbird, who then eat the fruit and disperse the seed elsewhere. One 2008 study in the New Zealand Journal of Ecology found a mean retention time of kahikatea seeds in kererū of 44.5 minutes. It was suggested in a 1989 study that the high water content of the receptacle may also help protect the seeds, which are vulnerable to drying out, from dry conditions. It may also serve as a storage vessel for water.
The bluish seeds have very strong UV reflectance, which is visible to some species of birds.
Epiphytes
Kahikatea can support a vast number of non-parasitic plants that live in its branches, called
epiphyte
An epiphyte is an organism that grows on the surface of a plant and derives its moisture and nutrients from the air, rain, water (in marine environments) or from debris accumulating around it. The plants on which epiphytes grow are called phoroph ...
s. One 2002 study identified between 90 and 100 species occurring on one mature tree. This included 49
vascular plant
Vascular plants (), also called tracheophytes () or collectively Tracheophyta (), form a large group of land plants ( accepted known species) that have lignified tissues (the xylem) for conducting water and minerals throughout the plant. They al ...
s and over 50
non-vascular plant
Non-vascular plants are plants without a vascular system consisting of xylem and phloem. Instead, they may possess simpler tissues that have specialized functions for the internal transport of water.
Non-vascular plants include two distantly rel ...
s, which the authors identified as comparable to the number found on a ''
Prumnopitys exigua'' in Bolivian
cloud forest
A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest (TMCF), is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, montane, moist forest characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud c ...
.
Competition
Intraspecific
Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species.
Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organ ...
competition between kahikatea trees was found in a 1999 study to be an important factor in their survival and overall success, affecting both growth rates and rates of mortality. Older trees have a particularly large advantage over resources compared to newer ones, and also have higher growth rates. Following flooding or other natural events, the kahikatea has been found to require an open
canopy
Canopy may refer to:
Plants
* Canopy (biology), aboveground portion of plant community or crop (including forests)
* Canopy (grape), aboveground portion of grapes
Religion and ceremonies
* Baldachin or canopy of state, typically placed over an ...
in order to re-establish. Because of the consistency of these events in South Westland however, many forested areas don't progress beyond regaining kahikatea and
rimu
''Dacrydium cupressinum'', commonly known as rimu, is a large evergreen coniferous tree endemic to the forests of New Zealand. It is a member of the southern conifer group, the podocarps.
The Māori name ''rimu'' comes from the Polynesian ...
, as other species, such as
kāmahi
''Weinmannia racemosa'', commonly called kāmahi, is an evergreen small shrub to medium-sized tree of the family Cunoniaceae. It is the most abundant forest tree in New Zealand, occurring in lowland, montane, and subalpine forests and shrubland ...
, need the environment to improve before they can return.
Conservation
![Palmerston Cooperage and Box Factory](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Palmerston_Cooperage_and_Box_Factory.jpg)
Prior to the arrival of humans in New Zealand around 75% of the country was covered in trees, and kahikatea dominated its own and once widespread kahikatea forest type. Even after the burning of many forests by early
Māori
Māori or Maori can refer to:
Relating to the Māori people
* Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group
* Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand
* Māori culture
* Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...
, there still remained large remnant forests which European settlers came upon in the 18th and 19th centuries. Prospects for use as timber were accelerated by the vast numbers of straight and tall trees, but because the wood is soft and odourless, it was made into pulp, barrels and boxes–butter boxes in particular were made mostly out of kahikatea.
The kahikatea's usually flat habitat, with its damp and
fertile
Fertility is the capability to produce offspring through reproduction following the onset of sexual maturity. The fertility rate is the average number of children born by a female during her lifetime and is quantified demographically. Fertilit ...
soil, was also a prime location for dairy farming. Together this led to the felling of much of the remaining forests in the North and South Islands during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Today they are confined mostly to the
South Westland
Westland District is a territorial authority district on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island. It is administered by the Westland District Council. The district's population is
History
Westland was originally a part of Canterbury Pro ...
region of the South Island, though small remnants still exist in some places.
Conservation efforts have focused on protecting and fencing kahikatea forests around the country.
Riccarton Bush
Riccarton is a suburb of Christchurch. It is due west of the city centre, separated from it by Hagley Park. Upper Riccarton is to the west of Riccarton.
History
On 12 April 1840, the ship ''Sarah and Elizabeth'' landed Herriot, McGillivray, ...
is one notable example of forest remnant protection. The near reserve was held in the
Deans family for 70 years before it was gifted to
Christchurch
Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon River / ...
by them in 1914, and subsequently formally protected in the Riccarton Bush Bill. It is the only surviving kahikatea forest remnant in the entire
Canterbury Plains
The Canterbury Plains () are an area in New Zealand centred in the Mid Canterbury, to the south of the city of Christchurch in the Canterbury region. Their northern extremes are at the foot of the Hundalee Hills in the Hurunui District, and in t ...
, and contains trees up to 600 years old. Reservation of stands may not totally protect kahikatea, however, because the alluvial plains that they favour are prone to upheaval and erosion and so trees may still become damaged.
Forest remnants outside of South Westland face the threat of never returning to their natural states, as a result of their small size, threats from weed species, and grazing by livestock. Despite this, the kahikatea has been classified as
Least concern
A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...
by the
International Union for Conservation of Nature
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...
and "Not Threatened" by the
New Zealand Threat Classification System
The New Zealand Threat Classification System is used by the Department of Conservation to assess conservation priorities of species in New Zealand.
The system was developed because the IUCN Red List, a similar conservation status system, had some ...
, which gives it an estimated population of above 100,000.
In Māori culture
In
Māori mythology
Māori mythology and Māori traditions are two major categories into which the remote oral history of New Zealand's Māori may be divided. Māori myths concern fantastic tales relating to the origins of what was the observable world for the pr ...
the kahikatea is a child of
Tāne
In Māori mythology, Tāne (also called Tāne-mahuta, Tāne-nui-a-Rangi, and several other names) is the god of forests and of birds, and the son of Ranginui and Papatūānuku, the sky father and the earth mother, who used to lie in a tight em ...
, the god of forests and birds, and Hine-wao-riki. It served as an important source of wood for the making of tools, of dye, and of food from its berries. To collect the latter, Māori had to climb sometimes more than to reach them.
19th century British
ethnographers
Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...
Richard Taylor,
Eldson Best, and
William Colenso
William Colenso (17 November 1811 – 10 February 1899) FRS was a Cornish Christian missionary to New Zealand, and also a printer, botanist, explorer and politician. He attended the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi and later wrote an accou ...
all recorded the fruit of kahikatea being eaten, and that it was given its own name: koroī.
Best described berries being collected in a basket and then hoisted down using a cord.
J. H. Kerry-Nicholls and William Colenso both recorded a blue or black dye being obtained from the soot of burning the kahikatea's resin or heart wood, called kāpara or māpara.
This was described as then being used in tattooing. This resin was also used as chewing gum.
The wood could be made into canoes, called
waka
Waka may refer to:
Culture and language
* Waka (canoe), a Polynesian word for canoe; especially, canoes of the Māori of New Zealand
** Waka ama, a Polynesian outrigger canoe
** Waka hourua, a Polynesian ocean-going canoe
** Waka taua, a Māori w ...
, but Best recorded that because of the softness of the wood they were far inferior to those made from
tōtara
''Podocarpus totara'' (; from the Maori-language ; the spelling "totara" is also common in English) is a species of podocarp tree endemic to New Zealand. It grows throughout the North Island and northeastern South Island in lowland, montane a ...
.
The heartwood was far stronger and R. H. Matthews described it as being used in tools and weapons such as spears. Medicinal applications were described by W. H. Goldie, who recorded the leaves being used to cure "internal complaints" as a
decoction
Decoction is a method of extraction by boiling herbal or plant material (which may include stems, roots, bark and rhizomes) to dissolve the chemicals of the material. It is the most common preparation method in various herbal-medicine systems. Dec ...
or in a steam bath.
References
External links
Gymnosperm Database - ''Dacrycarpus dacrydioides''
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1981615
dacrydioides
Trees of New Zealand
Trees of mild maritime climate
Least concern plants