Cabbage Tree

Botanical name:	Cordyline australis
Maori name:	Ti Kouka
Common name:	Cabbage tree
Height:	12-20 metres

Flowers mainly October / November – a distinctive plant with tall straight trunk with a dense rounded head of long straight flax like leaves.  The clusters of flowers have a strong scent and carry nectar which attracts insects in large numbers.  The fruit is ripe in late summer.

A very important source of food for many birds but especially the saddlebacks who collect insects from the leaves as well.

Maori used cabbage tree leaves for weaving into kits and other containers.  Cabbage tree roots and the inner pith of young trees were steamed in earth ovens to make a porridge-like food called kauru.  Young heart shoots from the growing tip were eaten raw or cooked in hangi ovens.

The European common name derives from the fact that the taste of boiled young leaves is similar to cooked European cabbage.

The genus Cordyline contains about 15 species distributed from India to Australia, the Pacific and South America. There are 5 species in New Zealand, 4 of which are endemic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 
Photography by Jan Velvin © (top right and bottom left) and Peter Craw © (bottom right)