By any yardstick, kauri pines are truly unique and impressive. If time is our measure, then the kauri family, Agathis, has endured over epochs, with fossils found in Australia from the early to mid-Jurassic period. Having withstood the rise and fall of the dinosaurs and the evolution and diversification of our flora, 17 species of living fossil trees in the Agathis family remain.

Germaine Greer, in her 2014 book White Beech, describes visiting a massive kauri tree on the North Island over 50m tall and 13.5m in diameter that is in danger of succumbing to the fungus after a life measured in millennia.




Kauri Pine