The mighty totara...........

Tōtara
A Natural and Cultural History
Philip Simpson
Auckland University Press
9781869408190
Hardback, 260 x 224 mm, 300 pages
Mid-JUNE 2017, $75.00

 Tōtara has been central to life in this country for thousands of years. This book tells a great tree’s story, and that is our story too.

The ‘mighty tōtara’ is one of our most extraordinary trees. Among the biggest and oldest trees in the New Zealand forest, the heart of Māori carving and culture, trailing no. 8 wire as fence posts on settler farms, clambered up in the Pureora protests of the 1980s: the story of New Zealand can be told through tōtara.

Simpson tells that story like nobody else could. In words and pictures, through waka and leaves, farmers and carvers, he takes us deep inside the trees: their botany and evolution, their role in Māori life and lore, their uses by Pākehā, and their current status in our environment and culture. By doing so, Simpson illuminates the natural world and the story of Māori and Pākehā in this country.

Our largest trees, the kauri Tāne Mahuta and the tōtara Pouakani, are both thought to be around 1000 years old. They were here before we humans were and their relatives will probably be here when we are gone.

About the author:

Philip Simpson is a botanist and author of Dancing Leaves: The Story of New Zealand’s Cabbage Tree, Tī Kōuka  (Canterbury University Press, 2000) and Pōhutukawa and Rātā: New Zealand’s Iron-hearted Trees (Te Papa Press, 2005). Both books won Montana Book Awards in the Environment category and Pōhutukawa and Rātā also won the Montana Medal for best non-fiction book. Simpson is unique in his ability to combine the scientific expertise of the trained botanist with a writer’s ability to understand the history of Māori and Pākehā interactions with the environment. He was awarded the Creative New Zealand Michael King Writer’s Fellowship to work on Tōtara: A Natural and Cultural History.

Born, raised and now living in Takaka, Philip studied botany at Canterbury University and UC Santa Barbara. He worked in soil conservation, environmental education, and ecology in the public service before becoming a botanical consultant and author.