2x Live plant tree Cordyline australis cabbage kōuka Leaves cutting

2 live plant for rooting 

100% Natural and Organically Grown, pesticide and pollution free. 

Enjoy a beautiful tree in your garden.

Can be grown as bonsai or as a garden tree.

After established, resistant to cold and drought

Cordyline australis, commonly known as the cabbage tree, cabbage-palm or tī kōuka, is a widely branched monocot

 tree endemic to New Zealand.

It grows up to 20 metres (66 feet) tall with a stout trunk and sword-like leaves, which are clustered at the tips of the branches and can be up to 1 metre (3.3 feet) long. With its tall, straight trunk and dense, rounded heads, C. australis is a characteristic feature of the New Zealand landscape. Its fruit is a favourite food source for the New Zealand pigeon and other native birds. It is common over a wide latitudinal range from the far north of the North Island at 34° 25'S to the south of the South Island at 46° 30'S. Absent from much of Fiordland, it was probably introduced by Māori to the Chatham Islands at 44° 00'S and to Stewart Island at 46° 50'S. It grows in a broad range of habitats, including forest margins, river banks and open places, and is abundant near swamps.[3] The largest known tree with a single trunk is growing at Pakawau, Golden Bay. It is estimated to be 400 or 500 years old, and stands 17 metres (56 feet) tall with a circumference of 9 metres (30 feet) at the base.

Known to Māori as tī kōuka, the tree was used as a source of food, particularly in the South Island, where it was cultivated in areas where other crops would not grow. It provided durable fibre for textiles, anchor ropes, fishing lines, baskets, waterproof rain capes and cloaks, and sandals. Hardy and fast growing, C. australis is widely planted in New Zealand gardens, parks and streets, and numerous cultivars are available. The tree can also be found in large numbers in island restoration projects such as Tiritiri Matangi Island, where it was among the first seedling trees to be planted.

Food

The stems and fleshy rhizomes of C. australis are high in natural sugars and were steam-cooked in earth ovens

 (umu tī, a large type of hāngi) to produce kāuru, a carbohydrate-rich food used to sweeten other foods. 

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 southern limit of kūmara (sweet potato) cultivation 

was at Banks Peninsula at 43°S, and south of there a culture developed around C. australis. Natural and planted

 groves of the cabbage tree were harvested.

Large parties trimmed the cut stems, and left them to dry for days or weeks.[69][70] As well as stems, the rhizomes—extensions of the trunk below the surface of the ground shaped like enormous carrots—were also dug up to be cooked. In the early 1840s, Edward Shortland said Māori preferred rhizomes from trees growing in deep rich soil. They dug them in spring or early summer just before the flowering of the plant, when they were at their sweetest. November was the favourite month for preparing kāuru in the South Island.

After drying, the harvested stems or rhizomes were steamed for 24 hours or more in the umu tī pit. Steaming 

converted the carbohydrate fructan in the stems to very sweet fructose. The cooked stems or rhizomes were then flattened by beating and carried back to villages for storage. Kāuru could be stored dry until the time came to add it to fern root and other foods to improve their palatability. 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. Kāuru could also be dipped in water and chewed, and was said to smell and taste like molasses.

Evidence of large cooking pits (umu tī) can still be found in the hills of South Canterbury and North Otago, 

where large groves of cabbage trees still stand. Europeans used the plant to make alcohol, and the often fearsome brews were relished by whalers and sealers.

The kōata, the growing tip of the plant, was eaten raw as medicine. When cooked, it was called the kōuka. If the spike of unopened leaves and a few outer leaves is gripped firmly at the base and bent, it will snap off. 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. Kōuka is delicious as a relish with fatty foods like eel, muttonbirds, or pigeons, or in modern times, pork, mutton and beef. Different trees were selected for their degree of bitterness, which should be strong for medicinal use, but less so when used as a vegetable.

Fibre

A tough fibre was extracted from the leaves of C. australis, and was valued for its strength and durability especially in seawater. 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). Morere swings provided a source of amusement for Māori children. The ropes had to be strong, so they were often made from the leaves or fibre of C. australis, which were much tougher than the fibres of New Zealand flax.The leaves were also used for rain capes, although the mountain cabbage tree C. indivisa, was preferred. The fibre made from cabbage tree leaves is stronger than that made from New Zealand flax.

Medicine

The Māori used various parts of Cordyline australis to treat injuries and illnesses, either boiled up into a drink or pounded into a paste.[7] The kōata, the growing tip of the plant, was eaten raw as a blood tonic or cleanser.[58] Juice from the leaves was used for cuts, cracks and sores. An infusion of the leaves was taken internally for diarrhoea and used externally for bathing cuts. The leaves were rubbed until soft and applied either directly or as an ointment to cuts, skin cracks and cracked or sore hands. The young shoot was eaten by nursing mothers and given to children for colic. The liquid from boiled shoots was taken for other stomach pains. The seeds of Cordyline australis are high in linoleic acid, one of the essential fatty acids.

Cultivation today 

C. australis is widely cultivated outside New Zealand. Here it grows on Alderney, one of the Channel Islands

Cordyline australis is one of the most widely cultivated New Zealand native trees. In Northwest Europe and 

other cool oceanic climates, it is very popular as an ornamental tree because it looks like a palm tree. 

Hardy forms from the coldest areas of the southern or inland South Island tolerate Northern Hemisphere 

conditions best, while North Island forms are much more tender.It is easily grown from fresh seed — seedlings often spontaneously appear in gardens from bird-dispersed seed — and can be grown very easily from shoot, stem and even trunk cuttings. It does well in pots and tubs.

It grows well as far north as western coast of Scotland, including the village of Plockton. It is more common in 

Southern England and in Ireland where it is grown all over the island. Although not a palm, it is locally named 

Cornish palm, Manx palm or Torbay palm. 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. It also grows 

in Spain, Italy and Japan. Even though the natural distribution of C. australis ranges from 34° S to 46°S, and 

despite its ultimately tropical origins, it also grows at about five degrees from the Arctic Circle in Masfjorden, Norway, latitude 61ºN, in a microclimate protected from arctic winds and moderated by the Gulf Stream.