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5 plants worth knowing

New Caledonia

New Caledonia, a fragment of ancient Gondwana, has one of the most extraordinary floras in the world: of its roughly 3,400 native species of vascular plants, about three-quarters are endemic. Around a third of Grande Terre is covered by nickel-rich ultramafic rocks, on which a unique scrub known as maquis minier has developed, while the coasts are graced by slender, columnar araucarias.

Hover over a plant to see on the map where it grows.

where it grows

  1. Cook pine 1

    tree

    Cook pine

    Araucaria columnaris

    Column-slim araucarias gave the Isle of Pines its name – their silhouettes are the most recognisable feature of New Caledonia’s landscape.
  2. Amborella 2

    shrub

    Amborella

    Amborella trichopoda

    Amborella is the “sister” of all the world’s other flowering plants – the only living member of the oldest lineage of angiosperms.
  3. Niaouli 3

    tree · Emblematic tree of New Caledonia

    Niaouli

    Melaleuca quinquenervia

    The niaouli, with its white papery bark, is a tree that survives every fire – it has become a symbol of New Caledonia and its people.
  4. Purple yam 4

    crop · Sacred plant in Kanak culture

    Purple yam

    Dioscorea alata

    In Kanak culture the yam is sacred – its growth cycle sets the calendar, and the first tubers are offered to the chiefs at the Yam Festival.
  5. Koghis kauri 5

    tree

    Koghis kauri

    Agathis lanceolata

    Kaoris are giant conifers of the southern forests – the most famous specimen, in the Rivière Bleue park, is probably about a thousand years old.