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The New Zealand kauri is unique to this country, but it has close relatives throughout the Southwest Pacific.
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Kauri forests are among the most diverse ecosystems in New Zealand. This forest contains more than 200 species of trees and shrubs.
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Giants of the Southwest Pacific
Kauri (Agathis australis) is a conifer of great antiquity. Its ancestors arose during the Jurassic period - 150 million years ago - when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
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Seedling to Forest Giants
Few trees in the world match the size of the kauri. Young trees take the form of a neat, tapering pyramid. In adolescence the trunk develops into a remarkably straight column.
As they mature, kauri shed their lower limbs and the trunk thickens to form massive pillars.
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How Big is Big
Kauri are very long-lived. Carbon dating of the remains of one tree showed it so be more than 4000 years old when it died.
One of the largest kauri ever measured Kairaru, had a diameter about the size of this platform. Kairaru was twice as big as the largest kauri living today. Tane Mahuta of Waipoua Forest.
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Wet Feet
Parts of the forest are poorly drained and the soil is continuously waterlogged. Kauri are very adaptable and can tolerate wet feet - indeed some of the biggest kauri grow in swamps.
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Bleeding the life
The kauri gum bleeding from this tree is the result of a wound. The gum acts as a bandage as the tree tried to heal itself.
Kauri gum was once highly valued for the manufacture of varnishes and linoleum.
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Gum bleeders climbed trees with spiked hammers and boots to collect gum. They made cuts at intervals on the trunk and later collected the solidified gum. This practice was eventually outlawed as it led to infection and death of trees.
Gum was also dug from fossilized deposits in many parts of Northland, and for a time this was an important industry.
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Here in Wiapoua, it can be hard to see the forest for the trees
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We often call Wiapoua a kauri forest, but the giant kauri groves only make up a small part of the wholes.
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Look between the great trunks, look up into the canopy, look between your feet. Take you time and you will begin to see a forest of endless variety, complexity and diversity.
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More than 300 species of trees, shrubs and ferns are found here. Our knowledge of the native herbs, mosses and lichens barely scratches the surface of Waipoua's genetic treasure house. More than 30 species are perched in the branches of Tane Mahuta alone. In its richness of species, Wiapoua is more akin to the tropical rainforests of the south west Pacific than it is to the temperate forests of the rest of New Zealand.
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All these species are arranged into a complex mossaic of vegitation patterns, shaped by geology, climate and evolution over millions of years. Imagine the 2000 year life-span of the oldest trees around you: their age is just an eyeblink in the history of Waipoua.
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This ancient forest now faces drastic change. Wiapoua evolved on islands isolated from the modern explosion of fast, adaptable warm-blooded mammals. It has poor defences against newcomers released on these islands by humans: rats and cats, weasels and stoats, possums and goats.
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The predators amongst these have already taken drastic toll of Waipoua's wildlife! the native parrots kaka and Kakariki have all but gone; only a dozen kokako sing their haunting song in the deeps of the forest; the plump pigeon, kukupa, is in decline.
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Possums and wild goats could eat Waipoua to a grey shell within a few decades. Populations of both are controlled by continuing hunting trapping and poisoning programmes.
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God of the Forest - Tane Mahuta
You are in the presence of one of the most ancient of trees.
In Maori cosmology, Tane is the sun of Ranginui the Sky Father and Papatuanuku the Earth Mother. Tane tore his parents apart, breaking their primal embrace, to bring light, space and air and allowing life to flourish
Tane is the lifegiver - all living creatures are his children.
This is the largest living kauri tree in New Zealand. It is difficult to accurately estimate the age of Tane Mahuta. But, it may be that Tane Mahuta sprang from a seed around 2000 years ago, during the lifetime of Christ.
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The dimensions of Tane Mahuta are:-
Trunk Height 17.7m
Total Height 51.5m
Trunk Girth 13.8m
Volume 244.5m3
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