The Cabbage Trees of Canterbury

There is a moment when you start noticing cabbage trees.

Not because they suddenly appear, but because they've always been there.

Scattered across farmland. Following rivers and streams. Standing alone in paddocks where little else grows. Once you recognise their distinctive shape, they become one of the defining features of the Canterbury landscape.

Cabbage Trees.

Known in te reo Māori as tī kōuka (Cordyline australis), the cabbage tree is one of New Zealand's most widespread native trees. Despite the name, it isn't closely related to cabbages at all. It belongs to the asparagus family, making it a distant relative of plants such as agave and yucca rather than broadleaf forest trees.

Its form is unmistakable. A single grey trunk gradually divides into heavy branches, each crowned with long, sword-like leaves that rustle in even the lightest breeze.

A mature tī kōuka in open country.

Cabbage trees thrive where many native species struggle.

They tolerate drought, frost, flooding and strong winds, making them well suited to Canterbury's exposed plains and changing seasons. While many people associate them with farmland, they naturally establish around wetlands, river terraces and seasonally damp ground, often marking where water lies beneath the surface.

Many of the mature trees seen across Canterbury today are decades old, with some estimated to be well over a century in age.

Well adapted to Canterbury's exposed landscape.

For Māori, tī kōuka was far more than a landmark.

The young shoots and underground stems were harvested as food, producing a naturally sweet carbohydrate after long cooking. The strong leaves were woven into ropes, sandals, rain capes, baskets and fishing equipment, while different parts of the plant were also used in traditional medicine.

Early European settlers also came to rely on the tree, using the durable leaves for thatching and recognising mature cabbage trees as reliable markers in an otherwise open landscape.

Nobody really sets out to admire a cabbage tree.

Yet together they define the character of Canterbury as much as braided rivers, shelterbelts and wide skies.

They break up the horizon, mark old waterways and provide familiar reference points across otherwise open country. Drive the same roads often enough and you begin to recognise individual trees without realising it.

A familiar shape on the Canterbury horizon.

The print isn't intended to be a botanical study.

The aim was to reduce the cabbage tree to its simplest recognisable forms.

That meant focusing on its distinctive silhouette: the textured trunk, spreading canopy and unmistakable shape that has become part of Canterbury's identity.

Sometimes the most familiar subjects are the ones worth looking at a little more closely.