Description
Hoheria angustifolia is a hardy specimen/shelter tree. It has a juvenile period of tangled stems with tiny leaves, adult mid-green serrated leaves. Starry white flowers, mid-summer. Tolerates poor dry soils. Great in mixed borders or for fast establishing shelter. Attractive to bees. Historically found in podocarp forests and along the high banks (dry side) of riparian edges.
Hoheria angustifolia, the narrow-leaved lacebark or narrow-leaved houhere, is a species of flowering plant endemic to New Zealand. It is an evergreen tree or shrub with a weeping habit and grows to 10 m (33 ft) tall. Known as Houhere in Te reo, the bark of the tree was occasionally used for traditional textiles.
It has grey-green to dark green leaves and white flowers from December to February. It has a divaricating small-leaved habit while young until it gets to about 2 m high. The adult leaves are narrow and coarsely toothed hence the common name of narrow-leaved lacebark. Distribution is larger than any of the other lacebark species and can be found mostly in the eastern South Island, and in the North Island from Taranaki down.
Hoheria angustifolia is often found in plant communities that include but are not limited to Plagianthus regius, Pittosporum eugenioides, Leptospermum scoparium, and Kunzea robusta.
For more information on plant communities, we recommend DOC’s publication Native Plant Communities of the Canterbury Plains.
