Species
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Dacrydium cupressinum Sol. ex G.Forst.

New Zealand red pine, Red Pine, red-pine

Climate known 22 photographs
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Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Dacrydium cupressinum, the rimu, is a species of conifer in the family Podocarpaceae, native to New Zealand. The tree usually reaches 35 metres in height, but may reach up to 60 metres and can have a stout trunk up to 2 m in diameter. It is dioecious, meaning individual trees are either male or female. Rimu is the country's most common native conifer, its range covers the North, South, and Stewart Islands. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Dacrydium cupressinum”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Dacrydium

Dacrydium is a genus of conifers in the family Podocarpaceae, containing sixteen species of dioecious trees and shrubs. The genus was first described by Solander in 1786, and formerly included many more species, which were divided into sections A, B, and C by Florin in 1931. The revisions of de Laubenfels and Quinn, reclassified the former section A as the new genus Falcatifolium, divided Section C into new genera Lepidothamnus, Lagarostrobos and Halocarpus, and retained Section B as genus Dacrydium.

Text from Wikipedia, “Dacrydium”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Podocarpaceae
Described by
Sol. ex G.Forst.
Native to
New Zealand North, New Zealand South
Wild records
768 in range· 230 open

At a glance

Warmest month
20°C
Feb, mean day; nights 13 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1576mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jul 165 mm (CHELSA)
Light
11–41DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (October to April and June in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 1576 mm a year, wettest July at 165 mm, driest January at 104 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 11 to 41 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 1.2 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Dacrydium cupressiforme Carrière; Dacrydium cupressinum Sol.; Thalamia cupressina (Sol. ex G.Forst.) Spreng.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (October to April and June in the northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (1137 mm of 1576 mm) takes 8 months, April to October and December. Mean temperature moves 8.6 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: October to April and June.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 1576 mm a year, wettest July at 165 mm, driest January at 104 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1576 mm a year at the habitat, 1137 mm of it April to October and December. Wettest month July at 165 mm, driest January at 104 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1182 mm to 3219 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 11 to 41 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 11 to 41 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 8, the highest 90th-percentile month 45).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor 1.2 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is 1.2 °C, the absolute minimum -1.5 °C, 16 frost nights in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 25.0 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 5.3 °C in July (across the envelope cells 1.3 °C to 9.7 °C), warmest day 19.8 °C in February (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 1.2 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 63 to 65% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 10 °C in Jul to 20 °C in Feb; mean night from 5 °C in Jul to 13 °C in Feb. The cold quarter, Jun to Aug, is the three months around the coldest night. 1576 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 399 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -1.5 °C and the 99th-percentile day 25.0 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-5°10°15°20°25°30°frost25.0° 99th-percentile day (undated)-1.5° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400mm rainDLI 11–41RH 63–65 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 399 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C20 / 17–2220 / 17–2218 / 15–2116 / 13–1813 / 10–1611 / 8–1410 / 7–1311 / 8–1412 / 11–1514 / 12–1616 / 14–1818 / 16–20
Night °C13 / 10–1713 / 10–1712 / 9–1610 / 7–148 / 5–136 / 2–115 / 1–106 / 2–107 / 3–118 / 5–1210 / 7–1312 / 9–15
Rain mm104 / 73–269104 / 73–204112 / 84–231120 / 90–243139 / 109–278159 / 115–295165 / 112–262152 / 111–267134 / 100–302138 / 96–328119 / 85–269130 / 92–311
DLI41 / 38–4536 / 32–3929 / 25–3120 / 17–2214 / 10–1611 / 8–1312 / 9–1417 / 14–1924 / 21–2732 / 29–3438 / 35–4241 / 38–44
RH %63 / 61–6663 / 61–6663 / 61–6664 / 61–6765 / 62–6965 / 62–6964 / 62–6964 / 62–6864 / 61–6864 / 61–6863 / 61–6664 / 61–67

Each figure is the median across the 399 grid cells holding the 760 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 2733:6981 (-46.675, 169.075). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -1.5 °C, 1st-percentile night 1.2 °C, 99th-percentile day 25.0 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 399 distinct grid cells holding the 760 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2733:6981 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -46.50_169.375, lapse-corrected -116 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 16 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeNew Zealand North, New Zealand South
Kew's description“tree” · “subtropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker-37.773, 175.087 · in the densest population, 489 records (64% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 768 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 230 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 313 km away. 1 record outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 8 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 2° block of the 768 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Dacrydium cupressinumDacrydium cupressinumDacrydium cupressinumDacrydium cupressinumDacrydium cupressinumDacrydium cupressinumDacrydium cupressinumDacrydium cupressinum

Photographs: John Barnett, CC0, iNaturalist via GBIF (2); Tommy Forrest, CC0, iNaturalist via GBIF (3); Jeremy Rolfe, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF; kiwialli, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF (2).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Dacrydium cupressinum, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

EVALUATING THE WIND POLLINATION BENEFITS OF MAST SEEDING
Dave Kelly, Deirdre E. Hart, Robert B. Allen (2001) · Ecology
Competition and the Coexistence of Species in a Mixed Podocarp Stand
Richard P. Duncan (1991) · Journal of Ecology
A quantitative assessment of shoot flammability for 60 tree and shrub species supports rankings based on expert opinion
Sarah V. Wyse, George L. W. Perry, Dean M. O’Connell, Phillip S. Holland (2016) · International Journal of Wildland Fire
Late Holocene forest disturbance in Gisborne, New Zealand: A comparison of terrestrial and marine pollen records
Janet M. Wilmshurst, Dennis N. Eden, P. C. Froggatt (1999) · New Zealand Journal of Botany
Contributions to the quaternary history of the New Zealand flora
N. T. Moar (1971) · New Zealand Journal of Botany

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence search API
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: not asked: 22 wild photographs already from the GBIF download
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 2 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.