Description
The elliptical, thick, leathery leaves may be up to 50 cm long and 20 cm wide with a glossy upper surface. They are the largest entire leaves in the New Zealand flora. The petioles (leaf stalks) may be up to 35 cm long. The tree produces panicles of green-white flowers followed by black berries. The leaves are densely crowded, twenty to thirty together at the tips of the branches, with a few large deciduous scales amongst the petioles of the youngest.
When young, the Puka grows straight up, but once it has flowered it tends to branch, typically forming a rounded crown. Puka's green-white flowers arise on erect terminal panicles up to 50 cm long from spring to autumn. The flowers are inconspicuous and ball-bearing sized fruit form only on the female plants (although occasionally bisexual flowers occur). The fruit is roundish-oblong, black, shining, slightly angled when young, becoming even as it approaches maturity; seeds 5, curved, much compressed, about three-eights of an inch in length, black, or dark-brown, intensely hard. Fruits take a year to mature, and as they begin to ripen to black, birds are attracted to them.
The entire plant is more or less resinous, and the dark-brown bark has numerous warty excrescences and is easily wounded, producing large callosities as it heals. The wood is white and brittle. The branches are very stout, showing the scars of fallen leaves. The trunk is stout or slender, irregularly and sparingly branched.
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