pūriri the ancient heart of the northern forest

Size
Height: 15–20 m
Lifespan
300–600 years
Diet
Produces clusters of pink, bell-shaped flowers rich in nectar, attracting tūī, bellbirds, and kākā. Flowers followed by small, pink, fleshy fruits eaten by native birds including kererū and tūī. Kererū swallows whole fruit and disperses seeds.
Habitat
Lowland forests of the upper North Island from Northland to Gisborne and Taranaki. A tree of warm, rich, deep soils on volcanic plains and fertile river valleys. Does not grow in the south. Cannot handle frost. A tree of the subtropical north.
Range
Found in lowland forests of upper North Island from Northland down to Gisborne and Taranaki. Most common in Northland, Auckland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Coromandel, and Taranaki. Does not grow in the South Island due to frost sensitivity.
Endemism
Endemic
Main Threats
Habitat loss is the primary threat. Many great old-growth puriri were felled for timber in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Also threatened by possum browsing on seedlings and new growth, and by land clearance for agriculture and urban development.
Population
Not Threatened, though many great old-growth Puriri were felled for timber in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Still common in northern lowland forests, regenerating bush, and as a specimen tree in parks and gardens. Not rare – just a tree of the north.
Conservation Status
Not Threatened
The old noble of the northern forest. Puriri is not the tallest – kauri and rimu outgrow it – but it is the most solid. Its trunk is thick, gnarled, and often buttressed at the base, spreading out like roots of an ancient oak. The bark is dark brown and rough, cracking into square, blocky plates that look like a jigsaw puzzle. A tree that looks like it has been here forever, and it has. What makes it special? The leaves. Unlike needles of podocarps or tiny scales of mānuka, Puriri has proper, broad, glossy leaves – three to five leaflets arranged like a hand, each one smooth and dark green and shiny. It looks almost tropical, which makes sense because Puriri is a member of the mint family, of all things. A tree that grows 20 metres tall, with leaves the size of your palm, related to sage in your garden. Evolution is strange. The flowers are the real show. In winter and spring, when the rest of the forest is grey and quiet, Puriri erupts in clusters of pinkish-red blossoms. They look like snapdragons, tubular and lipped, hanging from branches like small, velvety bells. These flowers are filled with nectar – so much nectar that tūī, kākā, and silvereye fight over them, chasing each other through the canopy in a frenzy of sugar and feathers. Puriri feeds the winter birds when nothing else will. After the flowers come the fruit. Puriri produces a bright red berry about the size of a cherry, with a single hard seed inside. The berries are edible – sweet, but not much flesh – and kererū (wood pigeon) loves them. The pigeon swallows the berry whole, digests the flesh, and poops out the seed somewhere else. Puriri travels on wings. The wood is legendary. Dense, heavy, and incredibly strong – so strong it was used for shipbuilding, for fence posts that last a century, for bearings of water mills. Māori carved it into weapons – mere, patu, clubs of warriors. A wood that does not rot, does not crack, does not give up. A Puriri fence post sunk into ground in 1880 is probably still standing. To sit under a Puriri on a summer afternoon is to sit under a green umbrella. Dense canopy, broad leaves, deep shade. Tūī singing, bees buzzing in flowers, kererū wobbling on a branch digesting a belly full of berries. The tree of the north, the old noble, the one that feeds the birds and shades the ground and holds the line.