page_title: Cordyline australis
section_title: Cultivars
hierarchical_section_title: Cordyline australis / Cultivation today / Cultivars
caption_attribution_description: Español: Cordyline australis 'Red Star' A vigorous cultivar with very dark reddish bronze sword-like leaves.
context_page_description: Cordyline australis, commonly known as the cabbage tree or cabbage-palm, is a widely branched monocot tree endemic to New Zealand.
  It grows up to 20 metres tall with a stout trunk and sword-like leaves, which are clustered at the tips of the branches and can be up to 1 metre long. With its tall, straight trunk and dense, rounded heads, it is a characteristic feature of the New Zealand landscape. Its fruit is a favourite food source for the New Zealand pigeon and other native birds. It is common over a wide latitudinal range from the far north of the North Island at 34° 25′S to the south of the South Island at 46° 30′S. Absent from much of Fiordland, it was probably introduced by Māori to the Chatham Islands at 44° 00′S and to Stewart Island at 46° 50′S. It grows in a broad range of habitats, including forest margins, river banks and open places, and is abundant near swamps. The largest known tree with a single trunk is growing at Pakawau, Golden Bay. It is estimated to be 400 or 500 years old, and stands 17 metres tall with a circumference of 9 metres at the base.
context_section_description: In the North Island, Māori cultivated selected forms of C. australis for food. One of these, called tī para or tī tāwhiti, was grown because it suckers readily and forms multiple fleshy rhizomes. A dwarf non-flowering selection of C. australis, it has a rubbery, pulpy stem, and thick green leaves. Although it was recorded by the early naturalists, botanists only rediscovered it in the 1990s, being grown by gardeners as the cultivar Cordyline 'Thomas Kirk'. Recent and unpublished DNA work suggests it derives from C. australis of the central North Island.
  Cordyline 'Ti Tawhiti' was "the subject of an intense discussion amongst the leading botanists of New Zealand at a meeting of the Royal Society ... in Wellington 100 years ago. It was saved from extinction because its dwarf form found favour with gardeners and it came to be known as Cordyline 'Kirkii' recording the interest Thomas Kirk had in the plant. Its origin as a Maori selection was forgotten until rediscovered in 1991. The name 'Tawhiti' is equivalent to 'Hawaiki' and indicates the traditional belief that the plant was introduced to Aotearoa by the ancestral canoes of Maori. However, it is more probable that the name arose from it being moved around its native land as a domesticated plant."
  Numerous cultivars of C. australis are sold within New Zealand and around the world. Like other Cordyline species, C. australis can produce sports which have very attractive colouration, including pink stripes and leaves in various shades of green, yellow or red. An early cultivar was published in France and England in 1870: Cordyline australis 'Lentiginosa' was described as having tinted leaves with brownish red spots. Other early cultivars included 'Veitchii' (1871) with crimson midribs, 'Atrosanguinea' (1882) with bronze leaves infused with red, 'Atropurpurea' (1886) and 'Purpurea' (1890) with purple leaves, and a range of variegated forms: 'Doucetiana' (1878), 'Argento-striata' (1888) and 'Dalleriana' (1890). In New Zealand and overseas, hybrids with other Cordyline species feature prominently in the range of cultivars available. New Plymouth plant breeders Duncan and Davies included hybrids of C. australis and C. banksii in their 1925 catalogue, and have produced many new cultivars since. In New Zealand, some of the coloured forms and hybrids seem to be more susceptible to attacks from the cabbage tree moth.
  Immature forms have become a popular annual house or ornamental plant under the name 'Spikes', or Dracaena 'Spikes'. 
   To add to the confusion, these may be misidentified as Cordyline indivisa (syn. Dracaena indivisa).
  C. australis is hardy to USDA zones 8–11.
caption: The cultivar Cordyline 'Red Star' has dark reddish bronze leaves
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