By Ata Ellery

Every time I drive through the Te Puna Quarry Park gates, I see the golden totaras shining brightly in the sun and I remember my father, James Yates, who discovered and nurtured the sickly yellow seedling he brought home from the local bush, with other native hardwood seedlings in the 1920-30s.

He grew the seedlings on to plant out in mixed plantations on the farm he was developing at Aotearoa (near Wharepuhunga), southeast of Te Awamutu. The yellow seedling totara didn’t thrive for a couple of years, but eventually it started to grow and was planted at the northern end of a plantation near the cottage he had built with pit sawn timber.

In 1937, Jim thought the golden totara, growing well and very colourful, was worthy of recognition and wrote to Wellington to inquire what should be done. Two horticulturists from Massey College (now University) came to view the tree in 1938 and returned to Massey with cuttings for propagation.

The trees, given the botanical name Podocarpus totara Aurea, have slowly spread around New Zealand, and are very noticeable in winter. The first tree is still growing on the farm, shining gold and can be seen from a long distance. Up close it’s not a spectacular specimen however, as it grows sandwiched between other trees.

It will be one hundred years in 2021 since James Yates pack-horsed from Te Awamutu, into the wilderness, along the Maori track from Waikato to Taupo to find his survey pegs. He was an early conservationist, and grew New Zealand natives (hardwoods) to give to friends and societies to plant around Te Awamutu. His philosophy was ‘cut a tree, plant a tree’.

When James arrived at his block, so the story goes, he patted his horse on the rump and let it go as there was no grass – only fern and trees. He and a bushman cleared two-thirds of the site and left one-third in standing bush.

This story first appeared in the Te Puna Quarry Park newsletter and is published here with the permission of the author.

Editor’s note: In the 1975 book Ornamental Conifers (Reed), general editor Julie Grace notes that the entry for golden totara may be the first of its kind and that the tree has been ‘around in New Zealand for probably 20 years and is now obtainable from most nurseries’.

The Te Ara Encyclopedia of NZ‘s entry for golden totara says it originates from a natural hybrid of totara (Podocarpus totara) and needle-leaved totara (Podocarpus acutifolius). All golden totara plants are male and propagated from cuttings. However, other sources say the tree is a hybrid between P. totara and Hall’s totara (Podocarpus hallii).

It grows more slowly than its parents and can be happily trimmed as a hedge.