NZ Native Trees #9 – Hinau (Wellington) Traditional Cache

This cache takes you 1.5 kms up the heavily-cached Mt. Climie track from the upper Tunnel Gully picnic area. It helps you to recognise one of New Zealand’s flowering forest trees. It is number 9 in a series of caches situated close to native trees.

Hinau

Common name: None

Botanical name: Elaeocarpus dentatus

The hinau is a lowland forest tree that grows from sea level to 600 metres altitude and ranges all over the North and South Islands. It grows up to 18 metres tall with a trunk up to 1 metre across.

The leaves are glossy green on top, slightly lighter beneath and are around 12 cms long and 2-3 cms wide.

Hinau flowers in late spring to early summer, with long racemes of dainty white flowers. These are followed by purple fruits with a kernel rather like an olive.

Hinau bark is grey with vertical furrows.

The cache

The cache was originally a red M&M container, but has been replaced after getting muggled and is now a small Our Mate jar containing just a Rite-in-the-Rain waterproof log sheet. Please make sure you take your own pencil or pen to sign the log. Online logs that are not supported by an entry in the paper log will be deleted. Please make sure you rehide the cache carefully and invisibly where found after signing the log as it is very close to the track and we don’t want it to be muggled again.