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Pittosporaceae family

Tawhiwhi Pittosporum tenuifolium

Tawhiwhi is an introduced perennial tree, found in the lower 48 states. It grows to 15 ft.

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY

Conditions

Sources · Conditions

Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness

Hardiness: ≥ zone 11 derived from its U.S. range

Size & form

Sources · Size & form

TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) — Height · Foliage

USDA PLANTS — Lifespan

Height: 15 ft
Lifespan: Perennial
Foliage: Evergreen broadleaf

In the garden

Shrub layer — Sits in the shrub of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →

derived roles

Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →

✦ Bees 1 bee visitor

1 native & managed bee species is documented visiting Tawhiwhi :

Apis mellifera · Honey Bee

Visitor records (observations, not exhaustive) from Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI →

Wildlife & visitors 10 birds · 1 nectaring

Open records of who else uses Tawhiwhi — a generalist food-web signal, kept separate from the keystone Ecological Value.

Recorded eaten by 10 birds species (fruit, seed, browse) — the most-recorded:

Turdus merula · Blackbird

Zosterops lateralis · Silvereye

Turdus philomelos · Song Thrush

Anthornis melanura · Bellbird

Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae · Tui

Sturnus vulgaris · Common Starling

1 adult butterfly & moth species is recorded nectaring at its flowers:

Vanessa gonerilla · Red Admiral

Interaction records (observations, not exhaustive) from GloBI → (CC0). Counts are distinct species; names are the most-recorded. Common names from Wikidata (CC0).

Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.

How we know this (2) Methods & honest limits

Leaf build Direct fact

We read each species’ measured specific leaf area (leaf area per unit dry weight) from the Global Spectrum dataset and band it: thin & fast (high SLA), medium, or thick & tough (low SLA). The global median is about 10 mm²/mg.

Honest limits: A species-mean from pooled measurements — individual plants vary with light and site. A broad strategy signal, not a precise per-plant figure.

Díaz, S. et al. (2022) The global spectrum of plant form and function: enhanced species-level trait dataset. Scientific Data 9:755.

Photosynthesis Direct fact

A recorded categorical fact: each species is tagged C3 (standard), C4 (heat/water-efficient) or CAM (succulent, night-time CO₂ uptake) — or a facultative combination. We only show a trait card for the noteworthy C4/CAM cases; C3 is the unremarkable majority, kept in the data but not surfaced as a card.

Kattge, J. et al. TRY plant trait database — Categorical Traits Dataset (2012).

Derived values are computed from open data by a published method — labelled, cited, and never shown as a direct observation. Full methodology →

Sources for this entry (17) Open & cited

[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)

[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)

[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)

[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)

[05] Invasive / introduced status — US-RIIS v2.0 (USGS)

[06] Photos — iNaturalist — CC, credited per image

[07] Ecological value — GloBI

[08] Foliage — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)

[09] Height — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)

[10] Functional traits — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)

[11] Photosynthetic pathway — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)

[12] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones

[13] Wildlife & visitors — GloBI — Global Biotic Interactions (CC0)

[14] Mycorrhiza — FungalRoot v2.0 · Meng et al. 2024 (Dryad, CC0)

[15] Bee visitors — Noori et al. 2026 (Zenodo, CC BY 4.0) · via GloBI

[16] Flower-visitor value (derived) — Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI

[17] County range — GBIF Open Data — open-licensed occurrences (CC0/CC-BY) → county

Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.

Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

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Ecological value open data

3 / 5 Keystone

Keystone (host) value — caterpillar, specialist-bee & monarch hosting. A low number means “not a keystone host,” not “low value”: generalist flower-visitor value is shown separately below and in Bees & wildlife.

Caterpillar host 3

Flower-visitor value derived 1

Recorded flower-visitor breadth — observations, not a nectar measurement. open data

⚠ non-native — reduced keystone value

Deep dive

Caterpillar host · 3/5 — native butterfly & moth caterpillars that feed on this genus — the base of the food web (more caterpillars → more songbirds). Genus-level keystone count from Warren II 2026 (CC0; Tallamy host-use records), gap-filled by our GloBI derivation.

Counts are genus-level and banded 0–5. Full rubric →

Host / keystone value from open interaction data. How this is scored →

📍 In your area live

Introduced to the U.S.

Recorded in 1 state.

Open occurrence records place it in 1 counties across 1 states · GBIF (CC0/CC-BY)

Introduced — Conterminous United States

Recorded in 1 states/territories

Conservation

Invasive? Introduced

Toxicity & pet safety

Check the ASPCA pet database →

Educational, not veterinary advice. If you suspect your pet ate this plant, contact a vet or pet poison-control line.

Functional traits TRY · Dryad

Seed mass small

9 mg

small seed — straightforward to sow

Leaf build medium

Medium

mid-range leaf build (measured leaf area per weight 11.5 mm²/mg)

Leaf size small

Small

small, fine-textured leaves (measured leaf area ~8.5 cm²)

Mycorrhiza no symbiosis

Non-mycorrhizal (NM)

forms little or no mycorrhiza — feeds itself directly, so it gains less from fungal soil networks

Deep dive — what these mean

Seed mass 9 mg — average weight of one seed. Bigger seeds are easier to hand-collect & direct-sow; dust-fine seeds need surface-sowing.

Leaf build — how thick & tough the leaves are. Thin, lightweight leaves grow fast and crave light; thick, tough leaves last longer and shrug off shade, drought & grazing. (measured leaf area per dry weight, 11.5 mm²/mg)

Photosynthesis — the standard “C3” pathway most plants use, most active in cooler, moister, moderate-light conditions. (pathway C3)

Mycorrhiza NM — the root–fungus partnership it forms (AM = most plants; ECM = most forest trees; ERM = heaths; NM = none). Trades sugars for water & nutrients via shared soil networks.

Measured traits from TRY + Werner et al. (N-fix), Fan et al. (roots) & FungalRoot — general guidance, not species-specific prescriptions.

More modules coming

Tawhiwhi Pittosporum tenuifolium

Growing & care

Wildlife & pollinators

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