tangikaroro_ngahere's Journal

These are the only two remaining adult Horoeka on our land that I know of. There are a few baby ones less than 1 metre tall that randomly show up not far from these two. I hope to one day harvest seed from them for riparian planting in Tangikaroro first. Once the numbers are high enough, then I hope to support other whanau and hapu in our iwi of Ngati Porou to begin riparian planting of our taonga. That's my 50 year plan.
I'm 53 now and my Dad Wi Wanoa is 75. These tipuna plants are so precious, our whanau are so very careful who comes into the ngahere because of them. We feel the same towards our whole ngahere, because we know we are protecting them for our whanau, hapu and iwi.

Saw some deep brown fairly rounded seed pods lying beneath the Titoki tree and realised they still had healthy seeds inside. They had been lying on the basalt rock that the Titoki is growing on top of and the angled edges had eroded off with the storm that's just passed. The wind blows soil from time to time onto the rock. The foliage falls and rots, adding to the soil. We've just had a huge downfall of rain with the flooding that's happened. (State Highway 35 has been closed now since Wednesday night.) So these seed pods have totally softened, and it's easy to release the seeds just by rubbing the pods. One seed per pod. Some of the biggest ones are the size of Karamu seeds before you seed clean them, they're hard az, and a beautiful shiny black colour.

I've collected maybe 200 of them and will sow them tomorrow. I also decided to give our ngahere a hand, and dropped a few in the soil on the rock, and covered them with some foliage. They'll be sheltered there, as it's a lovely spot with lots of trees around to help filter the rain water, so it's not too heavy.