Botany - Kauri dieback

The canopy of an infected tree starts to die off and lose all its leaves, then branches

Dr Joanna Young from Western Australia helps Auckland Council staff detect kauri dieback

One of the first visible signs of kauri dieback is gummosis, where the tree oozes white sticky gum

You can see it earlier by excavating roots and seeing this dead brown tissue at root tips and broken-off root tips

The last stage is a dead standing trunk which looks like a telephone pole