Species
+

Pittosporum crassifolium Banks & Sol. ex A.Cunn.

Karo, Stiffleaf Cheesewood (EN), Stiffleaf cheesewood, karo

Climate known 68 photographs
Add one to my plants Sow seed

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

Pittosporum crassifolium, karo, stiffleaf cheesewood, kaikaro or kihiki is a relatively fast-growing large shrub or small tree with an erect, fastigiate growth habit. It is endemic to New Zealand.

Text from Wikipedia, “Pittosporum crassifolium”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Pittosporum

Pittosporum is a genus of about 250 species of flowering plants in the family Pittosporaceae. Plants in the genus Pittosporum are shrubs or trees with leaves arranged alternately along the stems. The flowers are arranged singly or in cymes, with white to yellow petals fused at the base forming a short tube, with stamens that are free from each other. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Pittosporum”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Pittosporaceae
Described by
Banks & Sol. ex A.Cunn.
Native to
Kermadec Is., New Zealand North
Wild records
1166 in range· 489 open

At a glance

Warmest month
21°C
Feb, mean day; nights 17 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1331mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jul 153 mm (CHELSA)
Light
12–43DLI
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 1331 mm a year, wettest July at 153 mm, driest February at 82 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 12 to 43 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 5.0 °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 Pittosporum crassifolium Sol. ex Pullerl.; Pittosporum crassifolium Sol. ex Putterl.; Pittosporum crassifolium var. strictum Kirk.

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 (974 mm of 1331 mm) takes 8 months, April to October and December. Mean temperature moves 8.2 °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 1331 mm a year, wettest July at 153 mm, driest February at 82 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1331 mm a year at the habitat, 974 mm of it April to October and December. Wettest month July at 153 mm, driest February at 82 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1149 mm to 1811 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: 12 to 43 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 12 to 43 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 10, 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 5.0 °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 5.0 °C, the absolute minimum 2.6 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 25.4 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 9.1 °C in July (across the envelope cells 5.8 °C to 11.4 °C), warmest day 21.4 °C in February (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 5.0 °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: 61 to 63% 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 13 °C in Jul to 21 °C in Feb; mean night from 9 °C in Jul to 17 °C in Feb. The cold quarter, Jun to Aug, is the three months around the coldest night. 1331 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 376 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 2.6 °C and the 99th-percentile day 25.4 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.10°15°20°25°30°25.4° 99th-percentile day (undated)2.6° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200250mm rainDLI 12–43RH 61–63 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 376 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 °C21 / 18–2221 / 19–2320 / 17–2118 / 16–1916 / 14–1714 / 12–1513 / 11–1414 / 11–1415 / 12–1616 / 14–1717 / 15–1919 / 17–21
Night °C16 / 14–1817 / 14–1815 / 13–1714 / 11–1612 / 9–1410 / 7–129 / 6–119 / 6–1110 / 8–1211 / 9–1313 / 11–1415 / 13–16
Rain mm83 / 70–11382 / 70–12195 / 80–135101 / 86–159123 / 106–161143 / 120–199153 / 124–211134 / 107–188115 / 97–153105 / 88–15297 / 77–132100 / 88–145
DLI43 / 41–4538 / 36–3930 / 29–3122 / 20–2315 / 14–1612 / 10–1314 / 12–1519 / 17–2026 / 24–2734 / 32–3540 / 38–4243 / 41–45
RH %62 / 60–6462 / 60–6461 / 60–6461 / 60–6462 / 60–6562 / 61–6563 / 61–6562 / 61–6462 / 61–6562 / 60–6461 / 60–6462 / 60–65

Each figure is the median across the 376 grid cells holding the 1137 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 2539:7103 (-36.975, 175.175). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 2.6 °C, 1st-percentile night 5.0 °C, 99th-percentile day 25.4 °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 376 distinct grid cells holding the 1137 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2539:7103 (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 -37.00_175.000, lapse-corrected +97 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 147 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.
NativeKermadec Is., New Zealand North· introduced: Great Britain, Cape Provinces, Norfolk Is., Tasmania, Tubuai Is., California, Tristan da Cunha
Kew's description“shrub” · “subtropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker-36.848, 174.763 · in the densest population, 635 records (54% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1166 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 489 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 2 km away. 357 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 29 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 of the 1166 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Pittosporum crassifoliumPittosporum crassifoliumPittosporum crassifoliumPittosporum crassifoliumPittosporum crassifoliumPittosporum crassifoliumPittosporum crassifoliumPittosporum crassifolium

Photographs: (c) Arnim Littek, some rights reserved (CC BY) (4); no rights reserved · CC0 (4).

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 Pittosporum crassifolium, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

An external heat pulse method for measurement of sap flow through fruit pedicels, leaf petioles and other small‐diameter stems
Michael J. Clearwater, Zhiwei Luo, M. Mazzeo, Bartolomeo Dichio (2009) · Plant Cell & Environment
Rosellinia necatrix . [Descriptions of Fungi and Bacteria].
CAB International UK, A. Sivanesan, P. Holliday (1972) · Descriptions of Fungi and Bacteria
In Vitro Fermentation of Browsable Native Shrubs in New Zealand
James Chege Wangui, James P. Millner, P. R. Kenyon, Peter R. Tozer (2022) · Plants
Vegetation change (1968–2013) on a small rock stack adjoining Slipper Island (Whakahau), Coromandel, New Zealand
BD Clarkson, BD Clarkson, RJ Bylsma, JT Efford (2014) · New Zealand Journal of Botany
In-Vitro Fermentation of Browsable Native Shrubs in New Zealand
James Chege Wangui, James P. Millner, P. R. Kenyon, Peter R. Tozer (2022) · Preprints.org
First report of Zeatylenchus pittosporum on Pittosporum crassifolium
Dongmei Li, Yu Xu, Zeng Qi Zhao (2017) · Australasian Plant Disease Notes

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.

Other Pittosporum 5 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; 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 37 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.