Middle Holocene mangroves in Hawke's Bay, New Zealand

Pollen of the endemic mangrove Avicennia marina var. resinifera have been f ound in middle Holocene sediments in Te Paeroa Lagoon, Wairoa, northern Haw ke's Bay, on the east coast of New Zealand. The locality is approximately 1 40 km south of the southernmost modem occurrence of mangrove on the east co ast of New Zealand in Opotiki Harbour, in the Bay of Plenty, and about 40 k m south of the previously most southerly known Holocene fossil mangrove loc ality at Sponge Bay, Gisborne, in Poverty Bay. Radiocarbon dates indicate t hat Avicennia became locally extinct between about 6500 and 6000 years ago.