Pohutukawa

Page created 23 Nov 1996
Page updated 16 Jan 1997

Scientific species name: Metrosideros excelsa
Metrosideros means "iron-hearted" (from the Greek metra = middle and sideros = iron⁽⁸⁾) referring to the hardness of the timber, excelsa means tall⁽²⁾, outstanding ⁽⁴⁾, or from the Latin to raise, exalt.⁽⁹⁾ Pohutukawa was earlier known as Metrosideros tomentosa (meaning covered with soft matted hair).
Family: Myrtaceae (myrtle family) is a large family found throughout tropical and South America out to China and down through the Pacific. There is only one species of Myrtaceae in Europe, the classical myrtle⁽¹¹⁾ . This family includes species such as pohutukawa, bottlebrush, Eucalypts, Feijoa, guava and strawberry.^(1)(11) There are generally two types of fruit, either the fleshy, and usually edible, fruits such as Feijoa, guava and strawberry, or the hard woody capsules with very fine seeds like those that occur in the New Zealand species.⁽¹¹⁾ There are roughly 20 species of Metrosideros found from New Zealand to Malaya. The 11 New Zealand species are endemic (not found anywhere else).⁽²⁾
Maori name (s): Pohutukawa (splashed by the sea spray ⁽¹⁰⁾), hutukawa ⁽¹⁰⁾
Common name(s): Pohutukawa, New Zealand Christmas tree
Description: Pohutukawa is very much a coastal tree, rarely found inland unless planted. The tree is up to 20 m tall with a trunk up to 2 m in diameter. It hardly ever grows straight and is more likely to have many short trunks with tortuous branches. Usually found growing on cliffs with the branches nearly reaching in the water (occasionally even found with oysters growing on the branches⁽⁶⁾⁽⁹⁾) and the great roots spread along the cliff-face above. Quite often you can find bunches of red fibrous roots hanging down off the branches.⁽²⁾

The smallish oval leathery leaves, up to about 7 cm long, are dark green on the upper surface and whitish-grey and furry on the lower surface (this is a common attribute of coastal plants, it helps to keep water in and protects the underside from sun-glare off the water). Usually the edges of the leaf curl under. On Rangitoto (a volcanic island just off the coast by Auckland) pohutukawa hybridises (naturally cross-fertilises) with Northern rata (Metrosideros robusta) and produces a range of leaves from normal to much smaller, totally not furry, no rolled edges and sometimes with a small notch in the leaf tip (like Northern rata leaves).

Pohutukawa is called the New Zealand Christmas tree because it produces an abundance of bright red flowers from November to January. In good flowering years trees are totally covered in flowers. The most obvious parts of the round flat flower are the many red stamens that give the flower a rather hedgehog-like appearance. In the base of the flower are nectaries that produce copious quantities of nectar, much favoured by birds and insects alike.

There is a very similar species from the Kermadec Islands called Metrosideros kermadecensis which is a popular garden ornamental because it tends to have some flowers most of the year round. This tree has shorter, rounder leaves.⁽⁵⁾
The fine seeds are rather like those of Leptospermum very fine, red hairlike seed that is easily dispersed by the wind. These seeds mature in 1 cm long seed capsules that gradually change colour from hairy whitish-gray to brown. They then split open to release the seed to the wind.

Distribution: Pohutukawa is found on Three Kings Island, and the North Island, generally in coastal forest to its Southern limit in Poverty Bay and Urenui (Northern Taranaki).⁽²⁾ It is also found inland on lake shores and the islands of the Volcanic Plateau of the North Island because the Maori took it there.⁽⁶⁾ Pohutukawa has been planted overseas as an ornamental.⁽³⁾

Uses: Pohutukawa timber is exceptionally hard and strong with a beautiful red colour. The Maori used pohutukawa for similar tools and implements that they used kanuka for, as did the European settler. In the days of wooden boats pohutukawa branches were sometimes used as the keel because of their natural "boat-shaped" curves, strength and rot resistance. Planks from the wood were used to make the rest of the hull.⁽⁶⁾⁽⁷⁾ Branches extending over the water were often used as diving boards. Pohutukawas also feature in Maori mythology and history, several pohutukawa are thought to have been anchoring points for the first Maori canoes, and there is a pohutukawa at the tip of the North Island, at Cape Reinga, which is the jumping off point for the spirits of the deceased on their way to the underworld. Settlers used the flowers to decorate their homes at Christmas instead of holly.⁽⁶⁾

Pohutukawa honey is very popular, commonly found on supermarket shelves and a good for sore throats (the Maori used to suck it straight from the flower through a reed⁽⁶⁾).

An infusion of the inner bark was a valuable remedy for diarrhoea and was highly valued by bushmen as a remedy for dysentery.⁽³⁾ The Maori used the tannin in the inner bark to stop bleeding. They bound it against the wound or made a poultice of the boiled and powdered bark and bandaged it over the wound. For toothache a piece of inner bark was held in the mouth, or they steeped it in water and used it as a mouthwash and gargle.⁽⁶⁾

The tree is very popular in coastal plantings because it is salt resistant, provides shade and shelter and look great along the beach. It is also quite happy in poor soils and exposed conditions.⁽⁷⁾ Unfortunately, possums also like pohutukawa, leaves and flowers, and can completely strip a tree of all foliage, eventually killing it. In some areas you will see half metre wide aluminium bands around the trunks of the tree to keep the possums from climbing into the tree. Project Crimson!

There are some charming children's books by Avis Acres (recently reprinted) about the adventures of the flower children Hutu and Kawa, the pohutukawa twins.

References:
⁽¹⁾ J.T. Salmon (1989) The native trees of New Zealand.
⁽²⁾ Audrey Eagle (1978) Eagle's 100 trees of New Zealand.
⁽³⁾ S.G. Brooker, R.C. Cambie & R.C. Cooper (1987) New Zealand medicinal plants.
⁽⁴⁾ A.L. Poole & Nancy M. Adams (1986) Trees and shrubs of New Zealand.
⁽⁵⁾ J. T Salmon (1991) Native New Zealand flowering plants.
⁽⁶⁾ Christina Macdonald (1979) Medicines of the Maori.
⁽⁷⁾ J.W. Matthews (1962) New Zealand trees. A popular guide to identification of the principal species.
⁽⁸⁾ Alison Evans & Stephen Barnett (1987) New Zealand in flower.
⁽⁹⁾ Muriel Fisher, E. Satchell & Janet Watkins (1985) Gardening with New Zealand plants, shrubs & trees.
⁽¹⁰⁾ Murdoch Riley (1994) Maori healing and herbal. New Zealand ethnobiology sourcebook
⁽¹¹⁾ Colin Webb, Peter Johnson & Bill Sykes (1990) Flowering plants of New Zealand.

Further reading:
New Zealand Geographic, issue number 28 (October-December 1995)

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