Scientific name: Dacrycarpus dacrydioides (A.Richard) de Laubenfels 1969
Synonyms: Dacrydium excelsum D.Don, Dacrydium ferrugineum Van Houtte ex Gordon, Nageia dacrydioides (A.Rich.) F.Muell., Nageia excelsa (D.Don) Kuntze, Podocarpus dacrydioides A.Rich., Podocarpus excelsus (D.Don) Druce, Podocarpus thujoides R.Br.
Common names: White pine, Khikatea (Maori)
Description
Tree to 45(-60) m tall, often free of branches for half or more of its height, sometimes rising 30 m before the first branch, with trunk to 1.3(-1.8) m in diameter, cylindrical to fluted and buttressed at the base. Bark reddish brown, smooth, horizontally banded and bumpy when young, weathering light gray and becoming roughened by squarish flakes on large trees. Crown often remaining dense throughout life, conical in youth, becoming variously egg-shaped with maturity, with a few, heavy, horizontal to upwardly angled branches drooping near their ends and bearing numerous stiff or drooping branchlets densely clothed with foliage. Short shoots bearing leaves flattened into two rows predominant on juvenile plants up to 2 m tall, becoming progressively less frequent with maturity. Leaves of short shoots more or less in two flat rows, flattened side to side, (2-)4-7 mm long and 0.5-1 mm wide, longest in the middle of the shoot. Transitional leaves similar but shorter, up to 4 mm long. Leaves of adult foliage shoots placed all around the twig and curved strongly forward to clasp the twig tightly or loosely. Pollen cones (4-)8-15(-20) mm long, 2.5-3.5 mm thick, borne at the tip of a very short branchlet 1-7 mm long. Seed cones at the tip of a short branchlets 5-10(-25) mm long, scarcely clasped at the base by a sparse circle of scalelike, free bracts 1.5-2 mm long. Podocarpium warty, passing from green through yellow and orange to red with maturity, 3-5 mm long. Combined seed coat and epimatium spherical to a little elongate, 3-5 mm in diameter, 4-5 mm long, black at maturity, shiny beneath a thin dusting of wax, with an inconspicuous crest barely protruding at the end as a beak.
All three main islands of New Zealand but most common on the western side of South Island and rare on Stewart Island. Often forming pure, dense stands, especially in swamps, but reaching its greatest size on wet but not waterlogged soils, more scattered among other species in and above the canopy on drier ground; 0-500(-700) m.
Conservation Status
Red List Category & Criteria: Least Concern
(This species, and its main forest type, has undergone a significant decline over the last several centuries. However, the majority of this decline pre-dates the period of this assessment. In the absence of any current or ongoing decline an assessment of Least Concern is the most appropriate)
References
Farjon, A. (2010). A Handbook of the World's Conifers. Koninklijke Brill, Leiden.
Eckenwalder, J.E. (2009) Conifers of the World: The Complete Reference. Timber Press, Portland.
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. Cambridge, UK /Gland, Switzerland
Copyright © Aljos Farjon, James E. Eckenwalder, IUCN, Conifers Garden. All rights reserved.
