Going on a vacation in New Zealand is a great way to experience a lot of unique cuisine, culture and scenery. This is also the place where Captain Cook gave the iconic name Cabbage Tree to the trees with spikey leaves found in the area. During his journey in 1769, Cook’s ship was anchored at Ship’s Cove where he and his crew started to boil the young leaves of this plant. Captain Cook and his crew found out that the leaves were a great way to combat vitamin C deficiency which leads to the dreaded disease known as scurvy.
Although the plant is far from looking like a real cabbage, the captain named it that way because cabbage was a staple vegetable in the European society albeit not tasting the same. One can experience the amazing views of these trees bunched up in the horizon when visiting New Zealand.
The botanical name of the cabbage tree is Cordyline australis which have been collected since 1769. Its genus name is derived from the Ancient Greek word for a club or kordyle because of its enlarged deep ground stems. The species name australis is Latin for southern.
The cabbage tree has been named by Captain Cook as the early settlers of New Zealand used its leaves as an alternative for cabbage. Although the plant’s name could be a reference to the events of George Foster’s writing to the discovery of the species in Fiordland. The content said that its central shoot could be quite tender, taste like an almond’s kernel with a little cabbage flavor. This could probably be one of the reasons why the tree was named this way.
In all of New Zealand’s five native Cordyline species, the australis is the tallest amongst them all. The C. banksii is one of the common cabbage tree varieties with its slender yet sweeping trunk. There is the C. indivisa which is a beautiful looking plant that has a trunk that reaches up to 8 meters tall. It has broad leaves measuring up to 2 meters long and a massive head where these can be found.
Further up north of New Zealand is where the C. australis can be seen as its larger heavily branched plant form and narrow leaves compared to the C. obtecta, which is its closest relative. It is known rather as a variable and grows at the northern offshore islands. It is speculated that the australis is a hybrid from the C. obtecta as these plants, being in close vicinity to each other, flowers at the same time and share the same chromosome number.
The Maori tribes have long been well known with the cabbage tree even before it was scientifically discovered. Cordyline had a generic term in the Maori language which is tī having other names such as tī kōuka, tī kāuka, tī rākau, tī awe, tī pua, and tī whanake. Every one of the tribes had their own names for the tree which depended on their local uses and characteristic for each. Even so, its most widely used name which is tī kōuka, refers to the heart leaves as a source of food for the tribes.
There are a lot of species of cabbage trees in New Zealand nowadays and the locals continue to encourage their growth by planting them. There is even a local Highschool that had huge cabbage trees in its grounds that used to serve as a guide to the Maori through the swamplands nearby. The early European settlers have also used these plants as landmarks during their time of occupation before.
Travel Tip: New Zealand is a great place to travel and can be so affordable but other countries are much more expensive. If you are going to Europe any time soon make sure you check out cheap Paris hotels so you aren’t spending all your money on where you sleep at night.
Photo by Jonnykeelty
