Monday, February 2, 2009

Pohutukawa Tree, Our New Zealand Christmas Tree



This is a Scarlet Flowering Ironwood, and known as Metrosiderox excelsa. It blooms around Christmas and the whole tree is crimson.

The Maori word "Pohutukawa"means "sprinkled with spray", a delightful tribute to a tree that happily clings to seaside cliffs, or grows with it's roots partly submerged in the sea.

The tree now in January is laden with tiny fruits. I have in my archives pix of the fruits and close-up flowers. This tree is very big, and is a protected tree. This tree probably is more than 20 meters in height. It's horizontal, gravity-defying branches can give the tree a psread of more than 38 meters. I see little tree saplings growing under the tree. I have no idea if they grow from the seeds or from the roots. You can see how tall it is in comparison to one storey high buildings.

The two pix, the lower pix was taken at dusk. The upper one in the morning.

Tree No 9 for K.

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