[5] It grows in a broad range of habitats, including forest margins, river banks and open places, and is abundant near swamps.

It provided durable fibre for textiles, anchor ropes, fishing lines, baskets, waterproof rain capes and cloaks, and sandals.

[16] Large, peg-like rhizomes, covered with soft, purplish bark, up to 3 metres (10 feet) long in old plants, grow vertically down beneath the ground.

[19] New Zealand's native Cordyline species are relics of an influx of tropical plants that arrived from the north 15 million years ago in the warm Miocene era.

[26] In the central Volcanic Plateau, cabbage trees are tall, with stout, relatively unbranched stems and large stiff straight leaves.

In Hawke's Bay, some trees have greener, broader leaves, and this may be because of wharanui characteristics brought in across the main divide through the Manawatū Gorge.

The typical form grows, with little variation, from Cape Campbell to the northern Catlins, and from the eastern coast to the foothills of the Southern Alps / Kā Tiritiri o te Moana.

[30] Cordyline australis was collected in 1769 by Sir Joseph Banks and Dr Daniel Solander, naturalists on the Endeavour during Lieutenant James Cook's first voyage to the Pacific.

The generic Māori language term for plants in the genus Cordyline is tī, cognate with Tongan sī and Hawaiian kī (from Proto-Austronesian *siRi, C. fruticosa or C.

[43] A quote from Philip Simpson sums up the wide range of habitats the cabbage tree occupied in early New Zealand, and how much its abundance and distinctive form shaped the impression travellers received of the country: "In primeval New Zealand cabbage trees occupied a range of habitats, anywhere open, moist, fertile and warm enough for them to establish and mature: with forest; around the rocky coast; in lowland swamps, around the lakes and along the lower rivers; and perched on isolated rocks.

In the central North Island, it has evolved a much sturdier form (with the Māori name tī manu, meaning "with branches bearing broad, straight upright leaves").

[50] Early European explorers of New Zealand described "jungles of cabbage trees" along the banks of streams and rivers, in huge swamps and lowland valleys.

The seeds are also rich in linoleic acid as a food source for the developing embryo plant, a compound which is also important in the egg-laying cycle of birds.

When a bushfire has cleared the land of vegetation, cabbage tree seeds germinate in great numbers to make the most of the light and space opened up by the flames.

The leaves and the rough bark provide excellent homes for insects such as caterpillars and moths, small beetles, fly larvae, wētā, snails and slugs.

The rough bark also provides opportunities for epiphytes to cling and grow, and lizards hide amongst the dead leaves, coming out to drink the nectar and to eat the insects.

[66] If the leaves are left to decay, the soil underneath cabbage trees becomes a black humus that supports a rich array of amphipods, earthworms and millipedes.

[67] There are nine species of insect only found on C. australis, of which the best known is Epiphryne verriculata, the cabbage tree moth, which is perfectly adapted to hide on a dead leaf.

[69] For some years, the cause of the disease was unknown, and hypotheses included tree ageing, fungi, viruses, and environmental factors such as an increase in ultra-violet light.

[46] Another hypothesis was that a genetic problem may have been induced in Northland and Auckland by the thousands of cabbage trees brought into the area from elsewhere and planted in gardens and parks.

[4][46][69] The plight of Cordyline australis in the Sudden Decline epidemic drew attention to another widespread threat to the tree in rural areas throughout New Zealand.

[73] Other factors thought to contribute to Rural Decline include wood-rotting fungi like Phanerochaete cordylines, micro-organisms which cause saprobic decay and leaf-feeding caterpillars.

The growing tips or leaf hearts were stripped of leaves and eaten raw or cooked as a vegetable, when they were called kōuka—the origin of the Māori name of the tree.

The sugar in the stems or rhizomes would be partially crystallised, and could be found mixed in a sugary pulp with other matter between the fibres of the root, which were easily separated by tearing them apart.

The leaves can be removed, and what remains is like a small artichoke heart that can be steamed, roasted or boiled to make kōuka, a bitter vegetable available at any time of the year.

[80] The leaves were used for making anchor ropes and fishing lines, cooking mats, baskets, sandals and leggings for protection when travelling in the South Island high country, home of the prickly speargrasses (Aciphylla) and tūmatakuru or matagouri (Discaria toumatou).

The last name is due to its extensive use in Torbay, it being the official symbol of that area, used in tourist posters promoting South Devon as the English Riviera.

[90] Cordyline 'Tī Tawhiti' was "the subject of an intense discussion amongst the leading botanists of New Zealand at a meeting of the Royal Society ... in Wellington 100 years ago.

It was saved from extinction because its dwarf form found favour with gardeners and it came to be known as Cordyline 'Kirkii' recording the interest Thomas Kirk had in the plant.

[4][18] Like other Cordyline species, C. australis can produce sports which have very attractive colouration, including pink stripes and leaves in various shades of green, yellow or red.