Phyllocladus toatoa
Common name
toatoa
Synonyms
Phyllocladus glaucus Carriere [auct. non.]
Family
Phyllocladaceae
Flora category
Vascular – Native
Endemic taxon
Yes
Endemic genus
No
Endemic family
No
Structural class
Trees & Shrubs - Gymnosperms
NVS code
The National Vegetation Survey (NVS) Databank is a physical archive and electronic databank containing records of over 94,000 vegetation survey plots - including data from over 19,000 permanent plots. NVS maintains a standard set of species code abbreviations that correspond to standard scientific plant names from the Ngä Tipu o Aotearoa - New Zealand Plants database.
PHYTOA
Chromosome number
2n = 18
Current conservation status
The conservation status of all known New Zealand vascular plant taxa at the rank of species and below were reassessed in 2017 using the New Zealand Threat Classification System (NZTCS) – more information about this can be found on the NZTCS website. This report includes a statistical summary and brief notes on changes since 2012 and replaces all previous NZTCS lists for vascular plants.
Please note, threat classifications are often suggested by authors when publications fall between NZTCS assessment periods – an interim threat classification status has not been assessed by the NZTCS panel.
- Conservation status of New Zealand indigenous vascular plants, 2017 . 2018. Peter J. de Lange, Jeremy R. Rolfe, John W. Barkla, Shannel P. Courtney, Paul D. Champion, Leon R. Perrie, Sarah M. Beadel, Kerry A. Ford, Ilse Breitwieser, Ines Schönberger, Rowan Hindmarsh-Walls, Peter B. Heenan and Kate Ladley. Department of Conservation. Source: NZTCS and licensed by DOC for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
2017 | Not Threatened
Previous conservation statuses
2012 | Not Threatened
2009 | Not Threatened
2004 | Not Threatened
Distribution
Endemic. New Zealand: North Island from about Awakino (in the west) and Lake Waikaremoana (in the east) north to Ahipara and Mangonui. There is an outlier population in the northern Kaimanawa Range. Somewhat uncommon and often absent over large parts of this range.
Habitat
Found from sea level to c.1000 m a.s.l. Toatoa is generally associated with relatively infertile soils on exposed ridges, around bog margins, and on other poorly drained land.
Features
Small trees up to 15—25 m tall. Young or exposed plants conical in outline, shaded or enclosed plants with bushy, somewhat rounded, heavy crowns. Stems one or more, erect or leaning, strongly tapered, up to 900 mm diameter, with regular coppice and epicormic shoots. Branches distinctly whorled, robust, suberect, horizontal, or downturned with upturned ends, leaving prominent rounded to elliptic branch scars when shed, and characteristic raised ridges encircling the stems. Outer bark brown, grey-brown, or silvery-brown, at first smooth or lenticellate, persistent, later vertically fissured with prominent rounded or irregular lenticels, occasionally shedding in squarish or rectangular flakes; inner bark dark orange. Roots of mature trees plate-like, pegged, often with low rounded buttresses; mycorrhizal nodules or stub roots simple or branched, epidermal hairs abundant. Strong, erect, epicormic shoots from fallen layered stems. Cotyledons 2, 12—20 x 2—3 mm, submembranous, linear, acute, green above, glaucous beneath, stomata on lower surface only, veins 2, spreading horizontally or drooping, often strongly curved and horseshoelike, persistent. Juvenile leaves of seedlings and epicormic shoots 10—20 or more, 10—15 x 1—2 mm, submembranous, linear and needle-like, acute or obtuse, sometimes falcate, green above, glaucous beneath, stomata on lower surface only, single veined; spreading horizontally or curved downwards, persistent. Seedling phylloclades (flattened branch complex) 15-50 mm long, deeply pinnately lobed, determinate, subtended by juvenile leaves; transition to adult phylloclades gradual or rapid. Adult phylloclades 5-300 mm long, distinctly whorled, simple, or compound and pinnately lobed, determinate or indeterminate, subtended by scale leaves, each phylloclade consisting of 5—14 alternate, distichous, dorsiventral segments 20—80 x 20—40 mm, the segments very leathery, rhombic to flabellate with shallowly or deeply lobed or toothed, thickened, revolute margins, yellow-green, cup-shaped and amphistomatic when young, later flattened, green above, somewhat glaucous beneath, with stomata on lower surface only, subsessile or stalked. Resting buds 5-20 x 3-10 mm, characteristically coated with a white resinous film, consisting of few to many scale leaves, the outermost 0.5-15.0 mm long, subulate, erect,loosely imbricate, at first green with stomata on the lower surface, later reddish, the innermost 10—15 mm long on expansion, linear-obtuse to spathulate, at first green with stomata on the lower surface only, later reddish brown, deflexed and deciduous. Plants unisexual, with inconstant males and females. Male cones 5—20 in terminal whorled clusters, 15—30 x 5-10 mm at the widest point, cylindrical to wedge-shaped, each on a stout bracteate stalk 5—15 mm long; sporophylls many, each with 2 sporangia; pollen monad with 2 small sacci. Female cones distichous on basal regions of phylloclades, or more rarely on phylloclade segments; 0.5-0.8 x 0.5 mm, ovoid to globose, each on a short stout bracteate stalk and consisting of few to many spirally arranged cone bracts; fertile bracts supporting a single, erect, sessile, flask-shaped ovule, arillate at base. Seeds 3-4 x 2.5—3 mm, ovoid to squarish, dorsiventrally compressed, nutlike, dark brown to almost black,protruding when mature, and surrounded at the base by a white, thinly fleshy, crenulate or erose aril; micropyle distinct, curved to the ventral side.
Similar taxa
Toatoa is easily distinguished from all other species of Phyllocladus by its strictly whorled pinnate phylloclades with diamond- to fanshaped segments, its terminal clusters of 5—20 cylindrical to wedge-shaped male cones, and its short-stalked, ovoid to globose female cones supporting 3—15 seeds.
Flowering
October - December
Flower colours
No flowers
Fruiting
January - March
Propagation technique
Difficult. Although sometimes toatoa is easily grown even well established plants are prone to suddenly and inexplicably dying. Seems to do best in a free draining, moist soil with the root system kept in partial shade but the tree allowed to grow out into full sun.
Threats
Not Threatened. Toatoa has a patchy distribution and is often absent over large parts of its potential range. However, where it is present it is often locally common, typically forming dense stands of seemingly even-aged trees.
Etymology
phyllocladus: Leaf branch, referring to the leaf-like stems
toatoa: From the Maori name
Attribution
Fact sheet prepared for NZPCN by P.J. de Lange 1 August 2004. Description adapted from Molloy (1996).
References and further reading
Molloy, B.P.J. 1996: A new species name in Phyllocladus (Phyllocladaceae) from New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Botany 34: 287-297.
Moorfield, J. C. (2005). Te aka : Maori-English, English-Maori dictionary and index. Pearson Longman: Auckland, New Zealand
NZPCN Fact Sheet citation
Please cite as: de Lange, P.J. (Year at time of access): Phyllocladus toatoa Fact Sheet (content continuously updated). New Zealand Plant Conservation Network. https://www.nzpcn.org.nz/flora/species/phyllocladus-toatoa/ (Date website was queried)