Plant
Tōtara
Podocarpus totara
Also known as: Totara, Podocarpus totara
A long-lived podocarp conifer endemic to Aotearoa New Zealand, reaching 30m and individual ages well over 1,000 years. Heart-wood is rot-resistant, dense, and historically the preferred timber for Māori waka (canoes), pou whakairo (carved posts), and substantial built structures. Slower-growing than mānuka or kahikatea; long-term anchor of regenerating podocarp forest.
Scientific
Podocarpus totara (family Podocarpaceae) is the longest-lived of the New Zealand podocarps — surviving individuals over 1,800 years old are documented. Mature trees reach 30 m. Foliage is sharp-tipped scale-like leaves; “seeds” sit on a fleshy red receptacle attractive to birds.
Cultural
The heartwood’s combination of workability, density, and rot-resistance made tōtara the principal timber for traditional Māori construction. The largest waka taua (war canoes) were almost exclusively tōtara. Named individual trees and stands carry particular mana for the iwi whose rohe they grow within.
See also
Auto-generated from this entry’s typed relations: frontmatter, grouped by relation type so the editorial signal isn’t flattened.
- Member of: [[plants]]
- Contained by: [[tamaki-makaurau]]
- Grown by: [[kaipatiki-project-native-plant-nursery]] · [[kauri-park-nurseries]]
Sources
- DOC tōtara species pages
- Te Ara — The Encyclopedia of New Zealand
A plant entry in the 0mn1.one [[directory]].
Grown by
All listings →Farms and nurseries in the 0mn1.one directory that grow tōtara. Each is a real working operation — visit, buy from, learn from.
Kaipātiki Project Native Plant Nursery
substrate buildertamaki-makaurau
A community-driven, chemical-free native plant nursery on Auckland's North Shore, operating two sites — Birkdale (17 Lauderdale Road) and Engine Bay garden at Hobsonville Point. Eco-sources, propagates, and pots up tens of thousands of native plants annually across 80+ species, supplying local reserve restoration and community planting projects. Member of Te Aka Kōtuia, Auckland's network of iwi and community native nurseries.
Kauri Park Nurseries
substrate buildertamaki-makaurau
New Zealand's largest wholesale native and urban-landscaping nursery, based on State Highway One at Kaiwaka, North Auckland (with a Palmerston North branch). A NZ-owned family business operating as a vertically integrated group — seed sourcing through site planting and maintenance — supplying civil contractors, forestry owners, government agencies, councils, developers, and landscape architects. Notable projects include supplying 2.5 million plants for the Transmission Gully motorway.
What links here, and how
Inbound connections from across the wiki, grouped by lens and by relationship. These appear automatically — every entity page declares what it links to, and that data populates here on the targets.
Scientific
grows
- Kaipātiki Project Native Plant Nursery long-canopy podocarp for mature forest restoration
- Kauri Park Nurseries long-canopy podocarp for forest-restoration and carbon-forestry projects
General
shares approach with
- Coast redwood auto-linked via shared tag: conifer
- English yew auto-linked via shared tag: conifer
- Kiwifruit auto-linked via shared tag: new-zealand
- Venus flytrap auto-linked via shared tag: endemic
6 inbound links · 2 outbound