Juvenile Forms^24,25

Often very distinct juvenile and adult forms are a noticeable and, to those learning to identify native plants, a tiresome feature of the New Zealand flora. In the conifer broadleaf forest, some of the juveniles contrast with those of the tropics in that they are very freely branched with leaves much smaller than on the adults. These will be considered in Chapter 6 as part of the wider question of the small-leaved, freely branched or 'divaricating' shrubs, so prevalent in New Zealand.

The remaining rain forest species under this heading have juvenile leaves which are larger or longer or more compound or more dissected than those of the adults.

Raukawa (Pseudopanax edgerleyii) has palmately compound juvenile leaves with up to five deeply lobed leaflets. The adult leaves are simple and smooth-margined.

One variety of Pseudopanax simplex has juvenile leaves very similar to page 38those of P. edgerleyii and simple, toothed adult leaves (Fig. 18).

Pate (Schefflera digitata) is unusual in that juvenile leaves are only found on some plants in the northern half of the North Island. These leaves are palmately compound and similar in size to those of the adults, but the leaflets are deeply lobed rather than just toothed.

In three tree species, all belonging to the family Cunoniaceae, the leaves are basically pinnately compound. In Ackama rosifolia the juveniles have six to ten pairs of leaflets, the adults three to five. In towai (Weinmannia silvicola) the trend is from five to one pairs of leaflets; in kamahi (W. racemosa) from one or two pairs of leaflets to simple leaves (Fig. 19).

Figure 18 Juvenile and adult leaves of Pseudopanax simplex var simplex. Dissected compound juvenile leaves above; serrate, compound semi-juvenile leaves centre; simple, serrate adult leaves below. Photo: J. E. Casey.

Figure 19 Juvenile and adult leaves.
Lancewood (Pseudopanax crassifolius): la, juvenile leaf; lb, adult leaf; lc, d, brown, mottled leaves from a seedling.
Pseudopanax ferox: 2a, coarsely toothed juvenile leaf; 2b, adult leaf.
Hinau (Elaeocarpus dentatus): 3a, juvenile leaf; 3b, adult leaf (note domatia).
Rewarewa (Knightia excelsa):
4a, juvenile leaf; 4b, c, adult leaves.
Kamahi (Weinmannia racemosa): 5a, trifoliolate juvenile leaf; 5b, simple adult leaf.
Photo J. E. Casey.

In all cases where the juvenile leaves are compound and the adult leaves simple, the latter have a distinct joint at the end of the petiole as an indication of their compound derivation.

Only a few New Zealand species have juvenile leaves which are broad and much larger than the adults: wineberry (Aristotelia serrata), Nestegis

Figure 20 Adult lancewood (Pseudopanax crassifolius), with a basal shoot of completely juvenile form to the left. Nga Manu Reserve, Waikanae, southern North Island.
Photo: J. E. Casey.

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Figure 21 (left) Juvenile (below) and adult foliage of rimu (Dacrydium cupressinum).
Photo: J. E. Casey.

Figure 22 (right) Juvenile (above) and adult foliage of kahikatea (Dacrycarpus dacrydioides).
Photo: J. E. Casey.

apetala and Coprosma chathamica. In several species of Dracophyllum, where all the leaves are long and narrow, the juvenile leaves are much larger than the adults. In species of other genera the juvenile leaves are themselves very small but they are still larger than the adult leaves, which are reduced to scales, as in several species of 'whipcord' Hebe, Helichrysum coralloides and a group of conifers formerly included in Dacrjdium; silver pine (Lagarostrobos colensoi), yellow silver pine (Lepidothamnus intermedius), bog pine (Halocarpus bidwillii)H. biformis and manoao (H. kirkii). In the latter cases there is an abrupt change from juvenile to adult leaves. Two other conifers with scale-leaved adults are our only Dacrydium — rimu (D. cupressinum) (Fig. 21) and kahikatea (Dacrycarpus dacrydioides) (Fig. 22). In both of these the juvenile leaves are small and needle-like. The juveniles of rimu are notable for their attractive weeping habit.

Figure 23 Domatia of the adult leaves of hinau (Elaeocarpus dentatus). The pouch-like domatia form at the junctions of the secondary veins and the midrib. Photo: M. D. King.

In most of the species that follow, juvenile leaves are as narrow as the adult or narrower, but may have a larger area by virtue of their greater length. This is not a pattern familiar in the tropics, although on Mauritius and Reunion Islands in the Indian Ocean there is a partly comparable pattern — one species each of 24 genera has juvenile leaves which are much narrower than the adult leaves and also much smaller in area.²⁶

Lancewood (Pseudopanax crassifolius) (Figs. 19, 20) is the best known of our trees with a juvenile form.²⁷ The juvenile leaves are several times longer than those of the adult and a little narrower. They hang down in a distinctive cluster from the tip of the slender stem, which does not branch until it attains a height of 4-5 m after 15 or more years. The stem is then able to branch into a dense and rounded crown with short, broad, upwardly directed adult leaves. The related but less common P ferox is very similar, but the juvenile leaves have very coarse irregularly-shaped teeth (Fig. 19). Lancewood also has a distinct seedling form in which the leaves are very variable in shape, size and degree of dissection. Rewarewa (Knightia excelsa) and hinau (Elaeocarpus dentatus) (Fig. 19) with their long narrow juvenile leaves have a juvenile-adult pattern similar to lancewood, but branching is initiated at an earlier stage. The juvenile leaves of hinau are soft, widest near the tip and have obscure teeth; those of rewarewa are stiff, of even width and have coarse teeth. As mentioned earlier, the juvenile leaves of hinau may have pulvini, which the adult does not, but the adult leaves have pouch-like cavities or domatia (Fig. 23),²⁸ where the secondary veins meet the midrib on the undersides.

Three of the four species of Nestegis or 'native olives' have narrow adult leaves. In the case of two species, black maire (N. cunninghamii) and white maire (N. lanceolata), the juveniles are much narrower than the adults, but as they are also often longer they may have about the same area as the adult leaves or somewhat less. The last species, N. montana, has adult and juvenile leaves which are almost equally narrow, but the juveniles, being longer, are greater in area than the adults.

Trees with distinct juveniles may exhibit a curious phenomenon whereby fully adult specimens give rise to shoots near the ground which bear leaves of juvenile form (Fig. 20). These are termed reversion shoots and they derive from dormant buds formed during the juvenile phase of the tree and so are 'programmed' to be juvenile. Pokaka (Elaeocarpus page 43hookerianus) may be an exception, as reversion shoots can occur 10 m or more above the ground; well above the height of the juvenile stage.