This remaining tree stands in a more southwesterly relationship to the former larger Mediterranean Cypress that stood near the road'.
''The existence of these two specimens of obvious great age on this property, lends credence to the belief that Ratanui was the site of John Nairn's nursery prior to his departure from New Plymouth in about 1857. It is recorded that he supplied the two specimens still growing in St. Mary's churchyard over the grave of the Reverend Bollard. The two trees at Ratanui are larger than the St. Mary's pair and there is a row of comparable size on the opposite side of Carrington Road. On the other hand, there are several large specimens growing in Pukekura Park where they are not likely to have been planted before 1876. ( This is by no means certain). A count of the annual rings on a fallen specimen from Ratanui in the late 1970's revealed only about 120 rings, though it must be recorded that the sample was decayed and the rings very irregular and compressed. These two remaining specimens may never be capable of solving the mystery because some years ago grazing horses almost denuded them of bark, minimising the possibility of accurate estimation of age, when they ultimately die. So the mystery of the whereabouts of John Nairns nursery the first in New Plymouth, persists, but does not lessen the attraction of these two dissimilar specimens growing free standing and offering shade to grazing stock. They are located in a north-east, south-west orientation in a paddock adjoining Atkinson road'. Fuller 1983.