Sunday, December 03, 2006

Pohutukawa: The 70 ft. Poinsettia

A native of Australia, Wendy Cowling moved to New Zealand 15 years ago. She kindly sent us this post on the New Zealand Christmas Tree: Pohutukawa (Maori for “drenched with mist”). Beaches of the Coromandel are now “drenched” in their annual festival.

Thank you for this seasonal eye-opener, Wendy.

Oceanside, with New Zealand’s Christmas tree

Photo: Volvo Adventures

By Wendy Cowling,

Hamilton, New Zealand

In New Zealand people look forward to the flowering of the pohutakawa, Metrosideros excelsa, which is popularly known as the New Zealand Christmas Tree. Pohutukawa [pronounced po-hootah-kahwah] is a coastal tree often growing with its roots clinging on to the rocky sides of cliffs or where the land begins and the beach sand ends.  The flowers are often featured on New Zealand-produced Christmas cards.

It has been described in New Zealand Geographic (1995,  #28, p.106) thus:

Crooked gnarled furrowed limbs span 10 or more metres, often cantilevered out from sheer cliffs. The whole tortured frame looks to have endured a thousand years of adversity, even when it has only seen fifty summers.

The most famous site for seeing numbers of these trees is along the coast of the peninsula known as the Coromandel in the North Island.  The trees also form an avenue along the road from Auckland airport and are features of the coastline on both the north and east coasts from late November onwards.

Pohutukawa bloom

Photo: Project Crimson

I am particularly fond of the pohutukawa blossoms because they are reminiscent of one of my favourite Eucalypt flowers, Eucalyptus ficifolia (originally from Western Australia), which is also bright red and flowers in the summer.  I make a pilgrimage each year to Raglan, a seaside/surfing village one and half hours from Hamilton, to see the pohutukawa in bloom.  The flowers are usually bright red but can sometimes be reddish-orange. 

The pohutukawa has cousins elsewhere in the Pacific, including the Tahitian shrub, rata. Pohutukawa is a protected tree but suffers from the depredations of possums (an animal imported from Australia in the 19th century).  The possum has a voracious appetite for the young leaves of shrubs and trees, including the Pohutukawa.  If they survive such predators, the trees can live for hundreds of years.