According to the Gymnosperm Database, Queensland kauri was first reported by Europeans in 1842 by Andrew Petrie, who found it growing in the Mary River country, and reported that the native peoples made their nets from its inner bark. A fine, even texture set this timber apart from the more common Hoop pine.
In the South Pacific, the cousins of the Australian kauri have a strong cultural significance and features in the Maori creation myth. The wood from the Southern Kauri (Agathis australis) was used for water craft, and the gum used in traditional tattoos (moko).
Enthusiastic attempts by the Queensland Forest Service to grow the kauri in plantations were devastated by large stick insects. As a result, kauris are now only grown at a very small scale in mixed species rainforest timber plantations, which is where I stumbled upon them.
In about 2002, during my PhD study of young (8-15 years old) rainforest plantations, I first measured kauri as a small tree amongst the well-regarded cabinet timber species of mahoganies and white beech. At first glance, the appeal for me of this Jurassic fossil was merely aesthetic. They were not very impressive in terms of early growth in the plantations; so I focused my attention on the rapid, early growing species.
However, having ignored the kauri for about 10 years, I was astonished (upon return to my old study sites) at how rapidly the kauris had progressed. Not only is this species one of the best performers in terms of diameter growth, but it also has excellent form. It produces straight stems free of large branches that indicates excellent quality logs, for those growers who value wood quality.
My regard for the kauri is now much more than aesthetic; or even as quirky relics from deep time. These trees are showing themselves to be extremely resilient and competitive, under challenging climatic conditions, across a very wide range of sites. They have the capacity to withstand severe storms as well as longer term stresses, such as drought.
I now know that, given the kauri pine can live for many centuries, it is not advisable to measure their value according to the first decade or so of growth, but rather their productivity and resilience across their whole lifespan.
Kauri Pine was originally sourced from New Zealand and Fiji when introduced into the Australian flooring market going back 30-100+ years ago. Due to the scarcity of the Kauri Pines in both these countries it is now sourced from India and has a very close resemblance to the other islands it was originally from. It is a large softwood of South East Asia extending from Malaysia through to Papua New Guinea and the Philippines. It has a reasonable consistent tan colour when new that darkens with age.
Maori used kauri timber for boat building, carving and building houses. The gum was used as a fire starter and for chewing (after it had been soaked in water and mixed with the milk of the puha plant).
The arrival of European settlers in the 1700s to 1800s saw the decimation of these magnificent forests. Sailors quickly realised the trunks of young kauri were ideal for ships' masts and spars, and the settlers who followed felled the mature trees to yielded huge quantities of sawn timber of unsurpassed quality for building.
Adolescent trees have straight pole trunks and a distinctive narrow conical crown. As the trees mature the trunk thickens and the lower branches are shed, resulting in the clean, straight trunk of the adult kauri.
The Waipoua forests of Northland were at first saved from destruction by their remoteness. The land was purchased by the Crown in 1876, but for decades there was debate over what should be done with the forest. Public pressure for total protection increased after the turn of the century, although in the 1940s kauri was logged for wartime boat building supplies.
In 1952 the 9,105 hectare Waipoua Sanctuary was finally declared, with all remaining kauri forests in Crown lands coming under the protection of the Department of Conservation by 1987. Kauri trees on private land are now also largely protected.
The forests of Waipoua are vitally important refuges for threatened wildlife. The endangered North Island kokako and the North Island brown kiwi both live here. More abundant are the kukupa/kereru (New Zealand wood pigeon), fantail, pied tit, tui, grey warbler, shining cuckoo and kingfisher. Another distinctive creature is the large and very handsome kauri snail, a carnivore which feeds mainly on earthworms, slugs and soft-bodied insects.
A lasting reminder of the once-thriving kauri industry are the kauri dams. Kauri driving dams were built by loggers to drive large quantities of kauri logs downstream from remote areas. While they played a major role in the destruction of the forest, they were also impressive engineering feats, built without drawings or detailed calculations, yet able to withstand the pressure of tonnes of water and kauri logs which were swept through with tremendous force when the dam was tripped.
In the Kauaeranga Valley on the Coromandel, kauri was logged extensively for over 50 years with more than 60 dams built. In 1970 remaining areas of surviving forest were deemed protected as part of the Coromandel Forest Park.
Should have been added in ( since common names don't tell much about a plant ) but Kauri pine is Agathis robusta. Spectacular tree but yes, they get HUGE.. Look up info on the specimen at The Huntington..
Shared this before. Specimen at Selby Botanical. Sarasota, FL..
Led by Koro and Bill, we drove to the outskirts of the forest. Before entering the woods, Bill said a prayer in Maori, asking for our protection as we walked. Then we started off on a hike that would take us to the two greatest trees of all: Te Matua Ngahere (the father of the forest) and Tane Mahuta (the lord of the forest).Evening was approaching as we hiked on a path that wound through dense underbrush. As we walked, our guides pointed out the kauri trees that we passed, each one more immense than the last.
One of the earth's oldest natural treasures, Lebanese amber, which contains the earliest known representatives of many insect groups, unlocks the secrets of a little-known world populated by dinosaurs, pterosaurs and cycads. Dating back some 135 million years to the early Cretaceous, the amber was formed in a wet, tropical kauri pine forest long before Earth's continents reached their present positions.
Kauri is the Maori name (indigenous Polynesian peoples) for the coniferous, evergreen trees that are part of the agathis species, and the Araucariaceae botanical family. Some other common names for the kauri tree (mostly for non-New Zealand natives) are the kauri pine, the southern kauri, and the New Zealand kauri.
This incredible tree may not be the tallest of all trees, but it is the largest by volume. They rival the girth of even the California redwood tree, with trunk diameters sometimes reaching 9 meters around. That is one giant kauri, an incredibly large tree.
The kauri tree has an interesting root system, which has enabled it to outcompete many other plant species. They possess 2 different root systems that contribute to their success. These are a deep peg root system, as well as a shallow and fine root system.
Though they are not the tallest tree in the world, they do come very close to the redwood tree in terms of pure mass. The trunk diameter and overall girth of the kauri tree beat the redwood tree, and redwood trunks tend to taper off, where kauri trees are extremely thick all the way up to its length.
As the tree matures and grows, it develops more height and more girth. The diameter of the kauri trunk is said to increase in increments between 1-5 mm per year. This may not sound like a lot, but that is equivalent to 8 annual tree rings.
A mature kauri will shed its lower branches, not only to conserve energy until they have a coveted spot in the forest canopy but to help protect them against fire damage and from invasive vine climbing.
The bark of a kauri tree grows in smooth flaking sheets. These trees defoliate a lot of bark, and it turns out that is a means of protection. Trees will flake away bark in such mass amounts that sometimes pile 2 meters high are created.
Kauri leaves are arranged in opposite pairs along a twig. They grow in whorls of 3 per stem. A kauri leaf is small and narrow, usually ranging between 3 and 7 cm long. They are leathery in texture and rather tough. Leaves are a bright green color, and persist on a tree for up to 15 years!
In these regions, kauri trees occupied a range spanning 7500 miles. Due to severe logging that range has been brought down to only 870 miles. By 1900 only 10% was left of their natural groves, and today only 4% is left.
Possibly one of the most interesting things about the kauri tree, is that they actually are able to modify the soil that they exist in. They create a custom soil biome through the decay of their own bark and foliage.
Apart from acidity, the litter from kauri trees is also high in tannins and phenols, which are harmful to other microorganisms. This means that parasitic insects and plants avoid the base of kauri trees entirely.
Kauri trees are incredible for their massive contribution to carbon capture. They are the second greatest above-ground biomass capable of capturing this amount of carbon, beat out only by eucalyptus forests. A mature kauri forest is capable of capturing 1000 tonnes of carbon per hectare of forest.
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