There’s no doubt Vaianu will claim many a tree ???? across all of Aotearoa-New ZealandZ, including this very special one at Mangapapa Church on Atkinson Street. As luck would have it, services today were cancelled, especially given the 9.45m tree came down at 11.40am, around the time parishioners would have been leaving. The tree had a spread of 12.6m and a trunk of 101cm.

Stewart Patrick says while no-one can pinpoint exactly how old the tree was, he guesses it was probably planted when the church was established in 1913.

Dendrologic arborist Meno Kluiters saw the tree in 2024, took samples and had it identified as a Eucalyptus parvula – more commonly known as a small-leaved gum which thrives in a very small natural range in south-eastern New South Wales where it grows at around 1000m above sea level.

Meno said the species is very rare in New Zealand and that the specimen at the Church could be the largest in the country. ????

Shane Roche – Mangapapa Church Pastor