Skip to main content

Story: Horticultural use of native plants

Cabbage tree

Image
Cabbage tree

Although Christchurch Botanic Gardens are well known for their English feel and collection of northern hemisphere trees, they have always had a place for natives. These cabbage trees (Cordyline australis) and flax (Phormium tenax) shared a border with introduced conifers in the early 1900s.

Using this item

Alexander Turnbull Library, Steffano Webb Collection (PAColl-3061)

Reference: 1/1-005462; G

by Steffano Francis Webb

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

All images & media in this story

How to cite this page

Maggy Wassilieff, Horticultural use of native plants – History, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/10435/cabbage-tree (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Maggy Wassilieff, published 1 March 2009.