Species
+

Rhopalostylis sapida H.Wendl. & Drude

Nikau, Nikau Palm, Nīkau palm, feather-duster palm

Climate known 22 photographs Tropical foliage plant
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

Rhopalostylis sapida, commonly known as nīkau, is a palm tree endemic to New Zealand, and the only palm native to mainland New Zealand.

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

About the genus · Rhopalostylis

Rhopalostylis is a genus of two species of palms native to the South Pacific. Both are smooth-trunked, with regular ringed scars from fallen leaves. The leaves are 3–5 m in length, and the leaf bases encircle the trunk.

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

Family
Arecaceae
Described by
H.Wendl. & Drude
Native to
Chatham Is., New Zealand North, New Zealand South
Wild records
1739 in range· 368 open

At a glance

Warmest month
21°C
Feb, mean day; nights 15 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1618mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jul 180 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
Grouped as a tropical foliage plant by Arecaceae, which is usually but not always one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (October to April and June in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 1618 mm a year, wettest July at 180 mm, driest January at 101 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 12 to 43 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 12 °C (archetype minimum for a tropical foliage plant, above the 5.0 °C habitat night).
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 Areca banksii A.Cunn.; Areca banksii A.Cunn. ex Kunth; Areca sapida Sol. ex G.Forst.

Cultivation

Grouped as a tropical foliage plant by Arecaceae, which is usually but not always one kind of plant (archetype table). The table supplies one figure for this group, a conventional minimum for the cold floor, and no prose.

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 (1183 mm of 1618 mm) takes 8 months, April to October and December. Mean temperature moves 8.5 °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 1618 mm a year, wettest July at 180 mm, driest January at 101 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1618 mm a year at the habitat, 1183 mm of it April to October and December. Wettest month July at 180 mm, driest January at 101 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1208 mm to 2321 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 12 °C (archetype minimum for a tropical foliage plant, above the 5.0 °C habitat night).

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 3.0 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 23.9 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 7.5 °C in July (across the envelope cells 4.5 °C to 10.6 °C), warmest day 20.6 °C in February (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 12 °C. The habitat figure, the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER), is 5.0 °C; the archetype table's conventional minimum for a tropical foliage plant (grouped by Arecaceae, which is usually but not always one kind of plant) is 12 °C, which is higher, and the floor rule takes the higher.

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, and the archetype table's group minimum where that is higher. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 63 to 64% 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 12 °C in Jul to 21 °C in Feb; mean night from 8 °C in Jul to 15 °C in Feb. The cold quarter, Jun to Aug, is the three months around the coldest night. 1618 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 637 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 3.0 °C and the 99th-percentile day 23.9 °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°23.9° 99th-percentile day (undated)3.0° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200250mm rainDLI 12–43RH 63–64 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 637 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 / 18–2221 / 18–2219 / 17–2117 / 15–1915 / 13–1713 / 11–1512 / 10–1412 / 10–1414 / 12–1515 / 13–1617 / 14–1819 / 16–20
Night °C15 / 13–1715 / 13–1814 / 12–1712 / 9–1510 / 7–138 / 5–128 / 5–118 / 5–119 / 6–1110 / 8–1211 / 9–1413 / 11–16
Rain mm101 / 73–156103 / 73–137114 / 85–162125 / 91–179144 / 112–196174 / 128–243180 / 138–230165 / 122–214138 / 102–217131 / 94–218117 / 85–180126 / 91–197
DLI43 / 40–4537 / 35–3930 / 28–3121 / 19–2215 / 13–1612 / 10–1313 / 11–1518 / 16–2025 / 23–2733 / 30–3539 / 36–4242 / 39–45
RH %63 / 61–6663 / 61–6663 / 61–6664 / 61–6664 / 61–6764 / 61–6764 / 62–6764 / 62–6764 / 62–6764 / 61–6763 / 61–6664 / 61–66

Each figure is the median across the 637 grid cells holding the 1716 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 2624:7098 (-41.225, 174.925). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 3.0 °C, 1st-percentile night 5.0 °C, 99th-percentile day 23.9 °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 637 distinct grid cells holding the 1716 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2624:7098 (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 -41.00_175.000, lapse-corrected -120 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 66 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.
NativeChatham Is., New Zealand North, New Zealand South
Kew's description“tree” · “subtropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker-36.858, 174.856 · in the densest population, 879 records (51% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1739 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 368 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 481 km away. 1 record outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 23 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 1739 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Rhopalostylis sapidaRhopalostylis sapidaRhopalostylis sapidaRhopalostylis sapidaRhopalostylis sapidaRhopalostylis sapidaRhopalostylis sapidaRhopalostylis sapida

Photographs: strewick, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF; Jon Sullivan, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF; Jenny Christianson, CC0, iNaturalist via GBIF (2); naturewatchwidow, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF; Tim Park, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF; Brett Sandford, 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 Rhopalostylis sapida, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Predicting plant invasions under climate change: are species distribution models validated by field trials?
Christine S. Sheppard, Bruce R. Burns, Margaret C. Stanley (2014) · Global Change Biology
Polysaccharide compositions of primary cell walls of the palms Phoenix canariensis and Rhopalostylis sapida
Susan Carnachan, Philip J. Harris (2000) · Plant Physiology and Biochemistry
Palynology, age and environmental significance of some peat beds in the upper Pleistocene Hinuera formation, South Auckland, New Zealand
Matthew S. McGlone, Campbell S. Nelson, Terry M. Hume (1978) · Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand
Germination behaviour of the seeds of six New Zealand woody plant species
C. J. Burrows (1995) · New Zealand Journal of Botany
Forest processes in the presence of wild ginger (Hedychium gardnerianum).
Peter A. Williams, Chris J. Winks, W. C. Rijkse (2003)
Age, reproduction and biomass allocation in Rhopalostylis sapida(Nikau Palm)
Neal J. Enright (1985) · Australian Journal of Ecology

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 2026-09-19 (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 not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: not asked: 11 wild photographs already from the GBIF download
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: filled 2026-09-20
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 16 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.