Piper excelsum
species of plant
Piper excelsum (formerly known as Macropiper excelsum) of the pepper family (Piperaceae) and commonly known as kawakawa, is a small tree of which the subspecies P. excelsum subsp. excelsum is endemic to New Zealand; the subspecies P. e. subsp. psittacorum is found on Lord Howe Island, Norfolk Island and the Kermadec Islands.
Description
Kawakawa is found throughout the North Island, and as far south as Ōkārito (43.20 °S) on the West Coast, and Banks Peninsula (43.5 °S) on the east coast of the South Island. The tree grows to 6 metres (20 feet).
The leaves are often covered with holes caused by the caterpillar of the kawakawa looper moth (Cleora scriptaria). The images depict the variety majus which has larger and more glossy leaves than P. excelsum.
Leaves
Kawakawa leaves are about 5–10 cm long by 6–12 cm wide; they are opposite to each other, broadly rounded with a short drawn-out tip and are heart-shaped at their bases. The leaves are deep green in colour if growing in the forest, but may be yellowish-green in more open situations.
“Piper excelsum” enters the record as species of plant. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Piper, excelsum and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Piper excelsum” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Piper, excelsum and species provides the most credible route into that argument.
Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q21306444. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
Current terminology should not be projected backward without checking the classification used when the underlying evidence was created. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Piper excelsum” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.