The fact I’m a bit of a tree person has probably slipped out over the past few years… Perhaps not quite in the same league as Dame Judi Dench’s A Passion for Trees but I’ll still go out of my way to meet remarkable trees. (Btw, I’ve borrowed this phrase from Thomas Pakenham’s book of the same name.)

Recently, I went down to Peel Forest, just to the south of Canterbury’s Rangitata river to check out some of the remnant forest giants, specifically totara, kahikatea, and matai—and they were well well and truly worth the trip, imho. Their scientific names are Podocarpus totara (totara), Dacrycarpus dacrydioides (kahikatea or “white pine”) and Prumnopitys taxifolia (matai, or “black pine.”)

Totara, seen from the forest fringe

According to the Department of Conservation information on the Peel Forest Scenic Reserve, all three trees are of the “family Podocarpaceae, a very ancient family going back in time more than 100 million years.”

Light and shadow across a kahikatea’s trunk

Totara are also the theme of several Maori whakatauki or proverbs. One of the most well known is:
Kua hinga te tōtara i Te Waonui a Tāne — a tōtara has fallen in the great forest of Tāne
This saying is used to mark the passing of a great leader or chief.

Bark detail

Such individuals, when living,  may also be referred to as: tōtara haemata – a strong-growing tōtara.

“I saw you standing like a totara tree…”

I hope you get some sense of meeting them, too, through the photos.

Kahikatea

And for the record, these trees are likely to be many hundreds, if not thousands of years old. Awesome, huh?!

Gnarly…

The not-so-happy news is that human beings put paid to these trees in vast numbers, during the European settlement of New Zealand. The Peel Forest trees are only still with us (largely) because of the foresight of a “…visiting British MP, Arthur Mills…[who in 1881]…was so horrified by the forest devastation he bought 16 hectares of un-cut forest. On his death this became the embryo of the present Peel Forest Park.”

Yep, that’s a root (totara again)

The totara is also under threat from the depradations of the ringtail possum, an Australia import that has had a devastating effect on New Zealand’s endemic vegetation.

A matter of perspective: a totara tree and me.

It’s not exactly a proud record for NZ, but I am grateful that there are still some of these marvelous trees in places like Peel Forest.