A tree that did not begin here. The apple tree was brought to New Zealand by early European settlers, carried across the ocean as seeds and saplings, planted in the new land. Now it grows in old orchards, in hedgerows, in waste places, a reminder of the people who came and the gardens they made. The apple tree is small, rarely exceeding ten metres in height, with a spreading crown and dark, fissured bark. The leaves are oval, toothed, and arranged alternately along the branches. The flowers are white or pink, appearing in spring, covering the tree in a cloud of petals. The fruit is the story – the apple, red or green or gold, sweet or sharp, the fruit of myth and memory. In New Zealand, apple trees have escaped from cultivation. They grow wild along roadsides, in old farmsteads, in the corners of fields that were once orchards. These wild trees are living history, preserving varieties that are no longer grown commercially. A gnarled old apple tree in an abandoned orchard might be a hundred years old, its fruit still sweet, its blossoms still pink. The wood of the apple tree is hard, dense, and finely grained. It was used for tool handles, for furniture, for the ribs of barrels. The fruit was dried, stored, or made into cider. The apple tree was a tree of utility, a tree of the kitchen garden, a tree of the homestead. To see an old apple tree in flower is to see a piece of history. The settlers who planted it are gone, but the tree remains. It blossoms every spring, fruits every autumn, drops its leaves every winter. It does not know that it is a stranger here. It just grows, and blooms, and feeds the birds. The apple tree is not a native. It is not endemic. It is not a king or a warrior. It is an immigrant, a settler, a tree that made a new home in a new land. It has been here for two hundred years. It will be here as long as the orchards are remembered.