Nothofagus menziesii

Nothofagus menziesii, called silver beech, is an evergreen tree that belongs to the family Nothofagaceae. It grows only in New Zealand, where it is common across both the North and South Islands.

The tree can reach 30 metres in height, with a trunk up to 1–2 metres across. Its bark is smooth and silvery-grey on young trees, marked with horizontal lenticels, but becomes more furrowed as the tree ages. Silver beech is thought to live for about 600 years.

British botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker first described the species in 1871, naming it after the Scottish naturalist Archibald Menzies. Within the genus Nothofagus, it sits in the subgenus Lophozonia. The genus itself likely originated on the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana around 80–90 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous, in what is now the Antarctic Peninsula.

Flower clusters appear in groups of one to four per branchlet, each on a short, slightly hairy stalk that holds a single terminal flower. The perianth is 5–6 mm across, split into two uneven parts, each divided into two or three segments. Each flower contains 30 to 36 stamens with tiny anthers at the tips. Kākā (Nestor meridionalis) sometimes visit the tree, digging for pūriri moth larvae (Aenetus virescens) and leaving deep scars in the bark.

Across New Zealand, deer browse on seedlings and young trees, eating the foliage and often killing the seedlings. Māori consider New Zealand’s Nothofagus species taonga (treasured), and the timber was once used to make fishing hooks. The IUCN Red List assessed silver beech in 2017 as “Least Concern,” with a population trend listed as “Stable.”