Locals and DoC bringing threatened heart-leaved kōhūhū back back to Murchison
Media release – Department of Conservation
8 February 2013
Love your endangered trees – Heart-leaved kōhūhū
Murchison is becoming known as a haven for rare and endangered tree species and locals are being invited to help another rare species make a comeback to the area’s valleys.
The Department of Conservation is selling saplings of the threatened heart-leaved kōhūhū at cost at the Murchison A&P Show on Saturday 16 February.
Two years ago Murchison locals very successfully assisted with putting more than 300 endangered Hector’s tree daisy back into the region by buying them at the A&P show and planting them in their gardens.
DOC Nelson Lakes biodiversity ranger Sandra Wotherspoon said in planting heart-leaved kōhūhū, Murchison landowners would seed a whole new
generation of the species in the area.
“We didn’t know heart-leaved kōhūhū was in the area until 2009, when Murchison local Roger Frost and Golden Bay ecologist Philip Simpson
discovered a tree while researching Philip’s latest book about totara”.
“The heart-leaved kōhūhū was growing in a big patch of needle-leaved totara on private land in the Owen Valley. Since then we have found 13 trees, and collected some seed”.
“It’s exciting because at the time Roger and Philip found this tree, the closest patch in the South Island was in the Catlins. Subsequently the species has
been found near Akaroa on Banks Peninsula, but that’s still a long way away.
Almost all heart-leaved kōhūhū had been cleared generations ago for pasture. Now heart-leaved kōhūhū Pittosporum obcordatum, has an extinction threat ranking of ’Nationally Vulnerable’, equivalent to that for most kiwi species, and whio/blue duck. It’s just luck that this patch wasn’t cleared, and it gives the species a basis to bounce back from in the top of the south island.
They are a lovely little tree. Like other commonly-planted Pittosporums kōhūhū and lemonwood, the flowers are small, very pretty, and are night-
scented.
They will grow up to about 5 metres high and their columnar shape means they would make a great hedge or border against a fence. They would
probably also tolerate pruning and clipping into nice shapes.
They will bring birds to the garden, with wood pigeons in particular being fond of the leaves and the seeds.
It has taken time to grow these saplings from the Owen seeds, so this is not a tree you can buy from the garden centre just yet. Getting them from the DOC tent at the Murchison A&P show might be the only chance people have for a while to get hold of one of these special trees.
The wild trees in the Owen are being looked after by the owners but there are no young trees or seedlings at the site. If we do nothing then as those old
trees die, another species will be lost from the area.”
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