Kauri Trees New Zealand

Northland in New Zeland is home to the mighty Kauri Tree. I am not sure if this is fit for a gardening blog but perhaps someone has a Kauri in their garden. The Kauri is classed as one of the world's mightiest and ancient of trees. They can grow up to 50 metres tall. The timber is used for making furniture and souvenirs. Northland is still the home of great Kauri forests, they are a bit of a touristy thing now. Because of geographical isolation and pressure for the trees to be protected, they now are. The history behind them is fascinating.

This is the forest of the Waipoua, on the West Coast of Northland. There are walking tracks to see the notable Kauri, small Kauri are seen everywhere but it is the giants of the forest that people come to see.

Tane Mahuta - Lord of the Forest

In Maori Cosmology (Maori are the native people of New Zealand) Tane is the son of Ranginui, the Sky Father and Papatuanuku, the Earth Mother. Tane tore his parents apart breaking their primal embrace and this allowed space, air and light and this alowed life to flourish, and so Tane is a life giver. All living creatures are Tanes children. Tane Mahuta is the largest known living Kauri Tree and no one knows it's age but it is thought to have sprung from a seed from around 2000 years ago. It is 51.5 metres high and the girth is around 13 metres.

Te Matua Ngahere - the Father of the Forest.

It has a height of almost 30 metres and a girth of 16.4 metres.

At the begining of the ice age a vast area of the kauri forests became buried. Layers of forests were buried by some catastophic event.  There are many theories as to the cause of the buried forests, but no one knows for sure. Theories include, tsunami, a meteor hitting the land, earthquake.

Maori people had many uses for the tree like building canoes, tattooing, and they chewed the gum that came out of the tree. It is this gum that the tree became most valuable for. It was discovered that it made a great varnish and people came from all over to gather this 'gold"It was the Dalmation people that were the hardy gumdiggers and were the ones that stayed. A lot of their decendants are still in the Northland region.

Life on the gumfields was hard. Shelters were made of anything that was available, tin, wood, sacking. They were working long hours in wet conditions. Theyt would probe the ground looking for possible sources of gum then would dig large holes to find it. Many of these holes still are around today and it is the remenants that are found in the holes that scientists are now studying to find out the history and ecology of the buried forests.

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