Cabbage Tree

Did you know

• Maori people used virtually every part of the cabbage tree: the leaves for weaving, the roots for food, and the trunk for building.
• The massive flower panicles produce an intensely sweet fragrance that can be smelled from hundreds of yards away.
• Young cabbage tree leaves were cooked and eaten like cabbage by early European settlers, giving the tree its common name.
• The root of the cabbage tree was a critical survival food for Maori, slow-cooked in earth ovens for up to two days.
• A sudden die-back disease devastated cabbage tree populations across New Zealand in the 1980s and 1990s, caused by a phytoplasma organism.

Color meanings

Uses

• traditional Maori resource
• ornamental tree
• coastal planting