Overview
Taurewa: NZMS 1 N112 (Map name: Ngauruhoe) 050905; NZMS 260: T19 27309 62332; 39° 04' 41" S, 175° 33' 10" E; E.D. = Tongariro (18.1). Taurewa was originally a timber milling settlement near the Tawhitikuri Stream.
In the early 1960s it was purchased by Victoria University of Wellington for use as a botany department field station, when its buildings comprised 20+ houses, a cookhouse-dining room and a hall. Victoria University sold Taurewa in the early 1970s and now all the original buildings have been demolished.
Former VUW botany students who collected specimens from Taurewa and its environs in the 1960s include: J.E. Braggins, W.D. Burke, R.J. Chinnock, M. McEwen (née Fleming), J. Knox, J. McLean, A. McEwen, A. McNeill-Adams, and R.H. Steele. Their specimens were originally gifted to the H.D. Gordon Herbarium (WELTU) and many were subsequently donated to Te Papa Herbarium (WELT) after the disestablishment of WELTU in 2011-12.
Approximately 235 Te Papa natural history specimens have been databased under this placename.