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    • Tāne Mahuta oldest living kauri tree. Majestic samaúma tree 70 m
    Rights: The University of Waikato Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato Published 14 December 2022 Size: 13 MB Referencing Hub media

    Tāne Mahuta (on the left) is called the ‘God of the forest’. Aotearoa1 New Zealand’s oldest living kauri tree is 51.5 metres2 tall and its trunk is 4.5 metres in diameter. It lives in the Waipoua Forest in Northland.

    This majestic samaúma tree reaches 70 metres in height and towers over the other trees in the rainforest. It has huge buttress roots3 that are taller than an adult.

    Tāne Mahuta image by W. Bulach, CC BY-SA 4.0 and the majestic samaúma © Joseph Michael.

    1. Aotearoa: The Māori name for New Zealand, meaning Land of the Long White Cloud.
    2. metre: The base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI).
    3. buttress roots: Large, wide roots found around the bottom of a shallow-rooted tree.

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    ARTICLE

    Indigenous perspectives – giants of the forests

    Trees are a magnificent wonder of nature – giants of the forest. Tāne Mahuta is a giant kauri (Agathis australis). At 51.5 metres tall, it is the oldest known living kauri tree in Aotearoa. The ...

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      Aotearoa

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      2. The Māori name for New Zealand, meaning Land of the Long White Cloud.

      metre

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      3. The base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI).

      buttress roots

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      4. Large, wide roots found around the bottom of a shallow-rooted tree.

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