25 January 2011

Ti kouka (cabbage tree)


See a tī kōuka (New Zealand cabbage tree, Cordyline australis) and you're in Aotearoa — even if you're overseas in someone's garden. They're tough, resilient and each has its own character (I'm tempted to say personality) — some lean and spindly, some multi-trunked, others massive with many heads, some surviving on old dead stumps. This one, here in the late light of dusk, lives about a hundred metres down the road from Te Awaoteatua stream.

[5 November 2010, Canon 20D, 10–22 mm f4 at 21 mm , ISO 200, 1/20s at f8]

All content © 2011 Pete McGregor

2 comments:

Relatively Retiring said...

Have you any idea where the cabbage connection comes from? They are as unlike cabbages as it's possible to be (well, almost!).

pohanginapete said...

RR, I think it was because part of the tree could be eaten and presumably resembled cabbage. Given the way cabbage was cooked in those pioneering days, I doubt it was particularly appetising.

I might be wrong.