Kohekohe ('' Dysoxylum spectabile'') is a medium-sized tree in the

Meliaceae Meliaceae, the mahogany family, is a flowering plant family of mostly trees and shrubs (and a few herbaceous plants, mangroves) in the order Sapindales. They are characterised by alternate, usually pinnate leaves without stipules, and by synca ...

family, native to

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...

. It is found in lowland and coastal forests throughout most of the

North Island The North Island, also officially named Te Ika-a-Māui, is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but much less populous South Island by the Cook Strait. The island's area is , making it the world's 14th-larges ...

and also occurs in the

Marlborough Sounds The Marlborough Sounds are an extensive network of sea-drowned valleys at the northern end of the South Island of New Zealand. The Marlborough Sounds were created by a combination of land subsidence and rising sea levels. According to Māori ...

in the north of the

South Island The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasma ...

. Mature trees grow up to in height, with a trunk up to a metre in diameter. A fairly close relative of true

mahogany Mahogany is a straight- grained, reddish-brown timber of three tropical hardwood species of the genus '' Swietenia'', indigenous to the AmericasBridgewater, Samuel (2012). ''A Natural History of Belize: Inside the Maya Forest''. Austin: Un ...

('' Swietenia''), it is also called New Zealand mahogany, because its wood is light, strong and polishes to a fine red colour. Kohekohe is notable for having characteristics normally associated with trees growing in the tropics, for example, its flowers and fruit grow directly from the trunk or branches (known as

cauliflory Cauliflory is a botanical term referring to plants that flower and fruit from their main stems or woody trunks, rather than from new growth and shoots. This can allow trees to be pollinated or have their seeds dispersed by animals that climb ...

), and it has large, glossy, pinnate leaves up to 40 cm in length. The

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed ...

s of kohekohe may be up to 30 cm long, and the flowers produce a strong sweet smell. The large green fruit takes around fifteen months to ripen. The fruit contains three or four cells containing a seed encased in a fleshy orange-coloured aril. The tree does not flower in the year while the fruit capsules are maturing, and therefore individual trees may flower in alternate years. Kohekohe forest used to be common in damp coastal and lowland areas in the North Island, but these forests have mostly disappeared because the land was used for settlement or they were browsed by

possums Possum may refer to: Animals * Phalangeriformes, or possums, any of a number of arboreal marsupial species native to Australia, New Guinea, and Sulawesi ** Common brushtail possum (''Trichosurus vulpecula''), a common possum in Australian urban ...

. Studies have shown rapid recovery in kohekohe canopy after implementation of possum control. Māori boiled the bark in water and drank it as a tonic. The wood was used for building canoes but is soft and not as durable as other woods and tends to rot quickly. It is valued for carving. Kohekohe was probably the dominant vegetation cover on

Kapiti Island Kapiti Island () is an island about off the west coast of the lower North Island of New Zealand. It is long, running southwest/northeast, and roughly wide, being more or less rectangular in shape, and has an area of . Its name has been used s ...

before it was cleared in the early 19th century for cultivation and farming. The kohekohe forest on Kapiti is recovering after possums were eradicated in 1986.

Gallery

File:Kohekohe2757leaves.jpg, Foliage File:Dysoxylum spectabile in Eastwoodhill Arboretum (3).jpg, Leaf File:Kohekohe flowers growing directly from trunk.jpg, Panicle growing directly from trunk File:Dysoxylum spectabile2 by Peter de Lange.jpg, Close-up of flowers File:Kohekohe967flowers.jpg, Flowers File:Kohekohe fruit 1.jpg, Fruits

Taxonomy

Kohekohe was first described by

Georg Forster Johann George Adam Forster, also known as Georg Forster (, 27 November 1754 – 10 January 1794), was a German naturalist, ethnologist, travel writer, journalist and revolutionary. At an early age, he accompanied his father, Johann Reinhold F ...

in 1786 as ''Trichilia spectabilis'', and was transferred to the genus, '' Dysoxylum'', in 1864 by

Joseph Hooker Joseph Hooker (November 13, 1814 – October 31, 1879) was an American Civil War general for the Union, chiefly remembered for his decisive defeat by Confederate General Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863. Hooker had serv ...

References

External links

*
''Dysoxylum spectabile'': Images and occurrence data
from

GBIF The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is an international organisation that focuses on making scientific data on biodiversity available via the Internet using web services. The data are provided by many institutions from around th ...

{{Taxonbar, from=Q6425982 Dysoxylum Cauliflory Trees of New Zealand Trees of mild maritime climate Taxa named by Georg Forster Taxa described in 1786