A friend and local farmer told us about a large puriri that had fallen down not far from the river so we decided to go for a morning wander in the old grove.
Puriri are an enchanting tree, their evocative shapes morph into all manner of creatures, our son commented on the 'taniwha' peering from every twisted gnarled branch and we picked out many a mokomoko and mania form.
I have heard puriri referred to as the eternal tree. When they eventually fall they have the ability to regrow themselves off the broken or rotted trunk and branches, young shoots sprout up in all directions like a resurrected army. It really is a remarkable tree.
Puriri are known to play a part in the funerary or mourning process of Maori and have been used as burial sites. For this reason they are often considered tapu.
Today many of these ancient remnant puriri (motu rakau/islands of trees) are dying or degraded because of unfenced cattle grazing on their bark.
You can read more about the puriri and its uses in this National Geographic article Princely Puriri.
The said puriri tree was impressive, it had split through the centre and fallen down.
Just as impressive was the enormous rata attached to the fallen tree which ran its entire length.
Northern Rata start off as an epiphyte in the canopy of its host tree and eventually the roots grow all the way to the ground. It was known as the "strangler rata" for a long time because people thought that the rata squeezed the host tree to death. Perhaps the rata hastened the fall of this puriri?
