Hawkes Bay Today
  • Hawke's Bay Today home
  • Latest news
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology

Locations

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Havelock North
  • Central Hawke's Bay
  • Tararua

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Dannevirke
  • Gisborne

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Hawkes Bay Today

Editorial: Old timer's sudden end saddens

By MARK STORY - ASSISTANT EDITOR
Hawkes Bay Today·
4 Dec, 2012 07:28 PM3 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

If someone had asked me on Monday what a Moreton Bay fig was, I'd have shrugged.

After all, it's not only a tree of the exotic variety - it's an Australian.

Yet as of late last week, the noted Clive Square number was the most talked about specimen on the street.

Truth be told I felt somewhat guilty when learning this splendid 110-year-old was cut down on Monday.

Guilty because its felling coincided with the publication of a missive I'd penned bemoaning this province's preference for trees not found naturally on these Shaky Isles.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

My column acted as some sort of macabre eulogy - or death knell - of one of Napier's best known trees. Wind damaged after mid-week gales, it was decided to de-throne the unequivocal king of Clive Square.

I don't blame the council for making the call. A local authority needs to reflect society's perception of what constitutes a threat. I'd say most in the community would have given a sombre tip of the hat to the chainsaws.

But I'm left wondering whether the threat was imminent. Wondering whether death by crushing would be far less likely than dying on our roads.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

I wonder how many limbs of this old tree fell in its 110 years. If none, then last week's was a freak accident. If many, then there have been no cases of injury or death - freakish.

Given the presence of a prominent treescape in this country, there's an implied and consented degree of risk in gracing our public spaces with trees. Our parks, and indeed many of our backyards, boast trees 10-fold the height of this fig. We walk under them every day.

In China this year I witnessed a completely different stance.

That is, any aged or ailing tree, and there were plenty, was propped up with metal crutches. Trees had right of place in China's urban landscape. Buildings were erected around them. Branches ascending into powerlines were left untouched, they lived with it, or changed the direction of the powerlines.

This courtesy is, of course, relative to a tree's rarity, age and amenity - all things this fig ostensibly had in its favour. All this when I don't even like exotic trees.

But put simply, I think it's more than sad that this tree's autopsy came so soon after its surgery.

Here stood a most unusual tree. Dali-like, its all-reaching limbs were dynamically static - limbs that defied the laws of physics.

A defiance that lasted until Wednesday night, when it succumbed to a centenarian's worst enemy - the laws of gravity. Ironically, as science folklore has it, it's the very law sparked by an apple falling on someone's head while sitting happily under a tree.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

Hawkes Bay Today

Hawke’s Bay club rugby: Napier’s McLean Park to host 3 finals

11 Jul 04:03 AM
Hawkes Bay Today

Fire in Flaxmere garage sends plume of black smoke skyward

11 Jul 01:10 AM
Hawkes Bay Today

Mahia Hunt holds final fixture after marking 125th anniversary

10 Jul 09:05 PM

From early mornings to easy living

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

Hawke’s Bay club rugby: Napier’s McLean Park to host 3 finals

Hawke’s Bay club rugby: Napier’s McLean Park to host 3 finals

11 Jul 04:03 AM

Two Māori All Blacks to play in Maddison Trophy final.

Fire in Flaxmere garage sends plume of black smoke skyward

Fire in Flaxmere garage sends plume of black smoke skyward

11 Jul 01:10 AM
Mahia Hunt holds final fixture after marking 125th anniversary

Mahia Hunt holds final fixture after marking 125th anniversary

10 Jul 09:05 PM
Premium
The humour history of Don Martin: Wyn Drabble

The humour history of Don Martin: Wyn Drabble

10 Jul 07:00 PM
Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Hawke's Bay Today e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Hawke's Bay Today
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • NZME Events
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP