About the plant
Pittosporum fairchildii is found only on the uninhabited island chain the Three Kings Islands, 50km north of New Zealand’s North Island.
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Vulnerable
The International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species uses a set of criteria to evaluate the extinction risk of the world’s species. The ongoing mission is to evaluate every plant species in the world.
IUCN Red List Status:
Not yet evaluatedData deficientLeast concernNear threatenedVulnerableEndangeredCritically endangeredExtinct in the wildExtinct
Facts
- Usually found in the forest understorey
- Vulnerable to random events like landslides
- Threatened by introduced goats and livestock
- First described by Thomas Cheeseman in 1887

By Scot Nelson via flickr, CC BY 2.0

© Steve Attwood

By Peter de Lange via iNaturalist NZ

© Steve Attwood

Herbarium specimen K000591695

From Transactions of the Royal Society of New Zealand
Manawatawhi – Three Kings Islands
A long time ago Rauru Kitahi, chief of the people of the Far North, swam from Te Rerenga Wairua to Manawatawhi. Having arrived there in an exhausted state, he called the place Manawa tawhi, or ‘panting breath’.
Centuries later, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman anchored at the Islands in search of fresh water. As it was the twelfth day after Christmas, the Feast of the Epiphany, he ‘named’ the Islands the Three Kings, after the biblical three wise men.
-
Vulnerable
The International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species uses a set of criteria to evaluate the extinction risk of the world’s species. The ongoing mission is to evaluate every plant species in the world.
IUCN Red List Status:
Not yet evaluatedData deficientLeast concernNear threatenedVulnerableEndangeredCritically endangeredExtinct in the wildExtinct