Maureen - best you ask Landcare Research (try initially anyway Ines Schonberger ([email protected]) this question because as I am sure you will know Flora III records it as first 'naturalised' in 1980 (Healy & Edgar 1980) - which is simply a bench mark date because no one had formally listed it as naturalised earlier. Phoenix has been in cultivation in New Zealand a very long time - for example I know that Governor Grey had planted it on Kawau but that it had been recorded here at least since the 1850's judging by old plant lists I have seen. I assume it started to naturalise fairly quickly from those initial plantings. You could also ask Ewen Cameron as well as to what his earliest naturalised specimen is in AK, and Leon Perrie for WELT records..