Bushy Park Forest Reserve

Forest and Bird, Issue 303, 1 February 2002, Page 10

Bushy Park Forest Reserve

YVONNE AIREY

Bushy Park Forest Reserve is an 87-hectare lowland forest remnant next to the Rangitatau East Road, eight kilometres from Kai Iwi on the Wanganui to New Plymouth highway (SH 3). Gazetted Protected Private Land in 1963, it is surrounded by farms, each with residual areas of degraded bush. The landform is an eroded marine terrace surface, 270-305 metres above mean sea level and consists of ridges, hill slopes, gully sides, gully floors, alluvial flats and wetland. The forest type is relict podocarp-broadleaf with regenerating tawa and pukatea on gully sides and floors. Rimu, hinau and miro are found throughout on ridges and hillslopes. Northern rata is found throughout the forest, including one listed notable tree ‘Ratanui,, estimated to be somewhere between 500 and 1000 years old. At 3.67 metres

in diameter, 11.6 metres in girth and standing 43.1 metres high, it is the largest known rata tree in New Zealand. There is also an area of manuka, bracken, and grassland where a wetlands pond was developed in 1980.

This northern rata tree in Bushy Park forest is believed to be the largest in New Zealand.