Our collective Taonga: Urban forest plan

A plan for the future of Auckland's urban forest

Appendix: The forests across the Auckland landscape

In the last 150,000 years or so, a series of small volcanoes erupted randomly across the isthmus and threw out fertile ash and lava that eventually covered around almost half of the land. Auckland's old clay hills, lowland flats, volcanic cones and lava flows, wetlands and coastal cliffs all offer different conditions for vegetation.

The clay hills would have been dominated by kauri and tanekaha, but would have included pigeonwood, maire, lancewood and towai. Rimu, miro and Hall's totara would have grown further down the slope, with tawa and towa and northern rata.
The cliffs, on the coastal fringe were dominated by pohutukawa and frequently formed a pure canopy along the coastline. Away from the shore, pohutukawa became a much less common and was joined by puriri, karaka, kohekohe, and kowhai; species which can still be found today in coastal forest at Waikowhai.
The lowland flats, kahikatea would have been a major species in the forest, along with totara. Matai, titoki and taraire would have grown on more fertile sites with tawa and karaka also present. Kowhai would have been common along the streams.
The wetlands, the main tree species would have been kahikatea, cabbage tree and manuka, with some pukatea and swamp maire. Flax and a variety of rushes and sedges would have been common.
The volcanic cones and lava flows, the younger forests would have been dominated by pohutukawa and rewarewa. Titoki, puriri, kohekohe, mahoe, mangeao and rewarewa would have been major species in the older broadleaved forest on lava flows.
On the coastal flats, pohutukawa was probably present in some areas, however today the vegetation is mainly short shrublands and salt marshes. Key species are flax (harakeke), saltmarsh ribbonwood and oioi (jointed wire rush).

Published February 2008