About Us

Kowhai Gold Books is an electronic store specialising in books by or about New Zealand and New Zealanders. We operate from our home as a mail-order business to keep overheads low.

We hope you find something of interest in our offering. If you can't find what you want, please email us, or go to our Enquiry Form (Contact us), above. We currently have more than seven thousand quality New Zealand books and could have the title you want, or be able to obtain it for you.

We are always ready to consider and provide a quotation for New Zealand books you are selling. Please contact us at our postal, fax or email address below.

Our Name

Formerly called the New Zealand laburnum, the kowhai is a widespread native tree (Sophora tetraptera or Sophora microphylla) covered in early spring with sprays of bright flowers that are often used as an icon of the beauty of this country.

Certain poets, for example, were at one time accused of belonging to the 'Kowhai Gold' school of verse-making - alluding to Quentin Pope's anthology of 1930 - because it was thought they were overdoing it in striving for effect by referring to the local flora and fauna.

Some claim the writer Eileen Duggan (1894-1972) belongs to this 'school', others that she is one of our finest poets. What do you think? Click on the image below for examples of her poems:

Note:

'Kowhai' is pronounced either kowai or kofai, according to The New Zealand Dictionary, ed. E. & H. Orsman. Auckland: New House Publishers Ltd, 1994

The painting of a kowhai (Sophora tetraptera), at left, by Sydenham Edwards was the first illustration of a New Zealand plant to appear in Curtis's Botanical Magazine, 1791. Banks and Solander gathered the seeds at Poverty Bay on Cook's first voyage in 1769 and the plants were raised in Britain and cultivated from cuttings and seeds. The specimen shown was taken from the Apothecaries' Garden in Chelsea, where it had been planted about 1774. (Early New Zealand Botanical Art by F. Bruce Sampson. Auckland: Reed Methuen, 1985)

Top