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Cabbage tree

Cordyline australis · Asparagaceae · all Cordyline records · also called Tī, Tī kōuka

Your local evidence lens

Separate evidence questions, never one approval badge

Set a ZIP to compare this record with state distribution, native range, USDA hardiness, and invasive records.

A genus split is not a placement verdict. Set a ZIP to read the local documented split.

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence: Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions: No test or rating condition is normalized.
Fire ecology context: No section-reviewed fire-ecology context is normalized.
Placement evidence: 1 source placement record; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions: Catalonia, Spain; Global; New Zealand
Maintenance: No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution: Documented in CA.
Native range: No current cited or legacy state native range is normalized.
Introduced / established: 1 sourced range or established record; set a location to match them. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness: No hardiness value is normalized.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Legal-list status: Set a location for an exact legal-list result; source silence is not clearance.
Seed-list status: Set a location to compare the separate state noxious-weed seed layer.
Reported invasive here: No ecological invasive report is normalized; that does not prove noninvasiveness.
Broader regional context: Aggregate AK, HI, and L48 evidence is shown only as regional context, never as an exact-state finding.
Federal context: Federal designations remain separate from state legal-list results.

How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Cabbage tree (Cordyline australis) — Photo: (c) Jon Sullivan, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

Form: tree
Grows in: CA
Rated in: Catalonia, Spain; Global; New Zealand
Uses: ornamental
Family: Asparagaceae
Evidence: 11 cited sources

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

Guía de pirojardinería: suitable inside or outside the 25-metre maximum-risk zone [girona-2020-iuf-25m-suitability] (with its recommendation)

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Mid-scale / conditional (1)

A quantitative assessment of shoot flammability for 60 tree and shrub species — International Journal of Wildland Fire (Wyse, Perry, O'Connell, Holland, Wright, Hosted, Whitelock, Geary, Maurin, Curran) · 2016 · original source Primary evidence Lab-tested lineage: lincoln-nz-tree

“Moderate flammability category (Fig. 2)”

Shoot category from the paper's cluster analysis; samples were air-dried for 24 hours before testing.

Listed without a rating (8)

FLAMITS: FLAMmability plant traiTS database — Dryad / Global Ecology and Biogeography · Dryad version 9 · original source Corroboration Trait database lineage: meta-aggregator

8 cited rows from this source; its identity, lineage and tier are stated once.
- “ignition frequency (%): 87.5” · score 87.5 (FLAMITS — ignition frequency (%))
  
  FLAMITS record 1365; Ignitability measurement; plant part branches; fuel all; predrying yes; device grill; site Cui2020a-1; sampling ND. Primary study Cui2020a: Cui, X., Paterson, A. M., Wyse, S. V., Alam, M. A., Maurin, K. J. L., Pieper, R., ... Curran, T. J. (2020a). Shoot flammability of vascular plants is phylogenetically conserved and related to habitat fire-proneness and growth form. Nature Plants, 6, 355-359.
- “maximum sample temperature (°C): 284.9” · score 284.9 (FLAMITS — maximum sample temperature (°C))
  
  FLAMITS record 1559; Combustibility measurement; plant part branches; fuel all; predrying yes; device grill; site Cui2020a-1; sampling ND. Primary study Cui2020a: Cui, X., Paterson, A. M., Wyse, S. V., Alam, M. A., Maurin, K. J. L., Pieper, R., ... Curran, T. J. (2020a). Shoot flammability of vascular plants is phylogenetically conserved and related to habitat fire-proneness and growth form. Nature Plants, 6, 355-359.
- “burning duration (s): 15.88” · score 15.88 (FLAMITS — burning duration (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 1753; Sustainability measurement; plant part branches; fuel all; predrying yes; device grill; site Cui2020a-1; sampling ND. Primary study Cui2020a: Cui, X., Paterson, A. M., Wyse, S. V., Alam, M. A., Maurin, K. J. L., Pieper, R., ... Curran, T. J. (2020a). Shoot flammability of vascular plants is phylogenetically conserved and related to habitat fire-proneness and growth form. Nature Plants, 6, 355-359.
- “estimated burnt biomass (%): 10” · score 10 (FLAMITS — estimated burnt biomass (%))
  
  FLAMITS record 1947; Consumability measurement; plant part branches; fuel all; predrying yes; device grill; site Cui2020a-1; sampling ND. Primary study Cui2020a: Cui, X., Paterson, A. M., Wyse, S. V., Alam, M. A., Maurin, K. J. L., Pieper, R., ... Curran, T. J. (2020a). Shoot flammability of vascular plants is phylogenetically conserved and related to habitat fire-proneness and growth form. Nature Plants, 6, 355-359.
- “ignition frequency (%): 87.5” · score 87.5 (FLAMITS — ignition frequency (%))
  
  FLAMITS record 14328; Ignitability measurement; plant part branches; fuel all; predrying yes; device grill; site Wyse2016-1; sampling ND. Primary study Wyse2016: Wyse, S. V., Perry, G. L. W., O'Connell, D. M., Holland, P. S., Wright, M. J., Hosted, C. L., ... Curran, T. J. (2016). A quantitative assessment of shoot flammability for 60 tree and shrub species supports rankings based on expert opinion. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 25, 466-477.
- “maximum sample temperature (°C): 266.1” · score 266.1 (FLAMITS — maximum sample temperature (°C))
  
  FLAMITS record 14388; Combustibility measurement; plant part branches; fuel all; predrying yes; device grill; site Wyse2016-1; sampling ND. Primary study Wyse2016: Wyse, S. V., Perry, G. L. W., O'Connell, D. M., Holland, P. S., Wright, M. J., Hosted, C. L., ... Curran, T. J. (2016). A quantitative assessment of shoot flammability for 60 tree and shrub species supports rankings based on expert opinion. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 25, 466-477.
- “burning duration (s): 15.9” · score 15.9 (FLAMITS — burning duration (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 14448; Sustainability measurement; plant part branches; fuel all; predrying yes; device grill; site Wyse2016-1; sampling ND. Primary study Wyse2016: Wyse, S. V., Perry, G. L. W., O'Connell, D. M., Holland, P. S., Wright, M. J., Hosted, C. L., ... Curran, T. J. (2016). A quantitative assessment of shoot flammability for 60 tree and shrub species supports rankings based on expert opinion. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 25, 466-477.
- “estimated burnt biomass (%): 10” · score 10 (FLAMITS — estimated burnt biomass (%))
  
  FLAMITS record 14508; Consumability measurement; plant part branches; fuel all; predrying yes; device grill; site Wyse2016-1; sampling ND. Primary study Wyse2016: Wyse, S. V., Perry, G. L. W., O'Connell, D. M., Holland, P. S., Wright, M. J., Hosted, C. L., ... Curran, T. J. (2016). A quantitative assessment of shoot flammability for 60 tree and shrub species supports rankings based on expert opinion. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 25, 466-477.

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

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Cordyline australis (Cabbage tree, Tī, Tī kōuka). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/cordyline-australis/. Last verified 2026-08-23.