The Cabbage Trees (Cordyline australis) Are Dying: Investigations of Sudden Decline in New Zealand

Abstract

The cabbage tree is revered in New Zealand. Thousands are planted in urban and rural gardens and parks. They line the streets in some cities and stand at the doorways of some of our most important buildings. They are rued only by those with lawnmowers, who express frustration at the very qualities that previously made the leaf fibres valued for the snares that caught the powerful forest pigeon, Kereru. They have been grown in enormous orchards, the young stems cooked in pit ovens called umu ti for a staple in the cool-temperate Polynesian diet (Fankhauser 1986). They have remained in the rural landscape where other native plants have succumbed, reflecting their ability to resprout from beneath the ground. This ability is proverbial to Maori people, who might say upon the death of a loved one — ‘Ehara i te ti, e wana ake’ — “This death is not like the cabbage tree which springs forth new shoots”. This is why ti rakau — the tree ti—is a pro-life symbol for both Maori and Pakeha New Zealanders. It is a marker of place — for burial of the body after death, for burial of the placenta after birth, for identifying the boundary of a food-gathering area, and for places of settlement, because the shoot tips of cabbage trees form a perennial supply of food.