New Zealand’s Tree of the Year – The Walking Tree (from https://www.treeoftheyear.co.nz/) Photo by Gareth Edwards

Well Readers, we’re all done for another year – notebooks are put away, textbooks are stowed, the scientific calculator is in a drawer, and my mind maps are on the shelf, becoming less and less understandable with every passing hour. However I could have tightened up my essay conclusion or  found a more apposite example for my discussion, it’s too blooming late now! It was a very fair exam, with nothing that we couldn’t have anticipated, and it will give everyone a chance to shine rather than trying to catch them out. I think I’ve done ok, but how well is now entirely up to the examiner, so I shall forget about it until mid July when the results are out. And I’ve already signed up for my very science-y biology module for next year. I’m four years through the six year study period – how did that happen? And it’s fair to say that I’ve enjoyed pretty much every moment.

And so, I turn my attention to my latest passion, this remarkable tree that has just won New Zealand’s Tree of the Year 2024. Look at it strutting about ent-fashion, and wearing high-heels to boot. It’s an arboreal supermodel, for sure.

The Walking Tree is a northern rātā (Metrosideros robusta). What a cheeky tree it is! It starts life as an epiphyte, high up in the branches of a mature tree. Then it sends roots down to the ground, and over centuries it forms a shell around the original tree, with the roots forming a kind of pseudotrunk (or two, in the case of the walking tree). The rātā has been  described as a ‘strangler’, but it appears to favour mainly trees that are already in decline. This is a patient plant that can live for up to a thousand years.

A less eccentric ‘walking tree’ (Photo By Callum O’Hagan – originally posted to Flickr as Kaitoke Tree, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4178957)

The main enemy of the northern rātā is the common brushtail possum which, though adorable, is not native to New Zealand, and eats the leaves, shoots and buds of the tree.

Common brushtail possum (Photo By JJ Harrison (https://www.jjharrison.com.au/) – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5992634)

At any rate, the Walking Tree is a very fine tree indeed, and a most deserved winner of New Zealand’s Tree of the Year. I wonder if someone will turn it into a children’s book? It looks as if it’s already two-thirds of the way to becoming a character.