A festive favourite
The more you look, the more po¯ hutukawa trees there seem to be, in various shades and quantities of red.
The po¯ hutukawa, or New Zealand Christmas tree as it is so named due to its flowering season, is becoming increasingly spread throughout the country, says Geoff Canham, owner of Po¯hutukawas a Plenty in Tauranga, which supplies the trees for public plantings.
But when it comes to why some trees flower better than others, he says it’s mostly the genetic makeup, and growers try and take cuttings from trees that flower more profusely.
‘‘When you grow them from seeds, out of every thousand you get 100 or so that are just amazing at flowering.’’
For reliable flowering at Christmas time, a northern rata tree is the best bet, Canham said.
‘‘And this year we’ve had a lot of demand for the yellow flowering po¯ hutukawa,’’ he said.
There are three species commonly called po¯ hutukawa in the Metrosideros family – the mainland po¯ hutukawa, the northern rata, from Hokitika northwards, and the southern rata, which grows throughout the country but is best suited to the South Island’s cooler temperatures. There is also the Kermadec po¯hutukawa, which is naturally restricted to the Kermadec Islands.
‘‘Po¯ hutukawa occurs from the top of the North Island to a line from say Gisborne to Taranaki,’’ said the ‘Bug Man’ Ruud Kleinpaste, who is also a trustee for Project Crimson, which aims to reestablish and educate about po¯ hutukawa. ‘‘Everything that is further south, like the famous po¯ hutukawa of the cricket pitch in Wellington, are all planted.
‘‘Northern rata you can always tell if you look at the tips of the leaves – they have a slight indentation, a slight notch right on the tip of the leaf.’’
The gene pool was nature’s way of making sure the species survives as the climate changes, he said.
‘‘Some genes, some genetic streams of po¯ hutukawa might be better equipped to withstand that than others.’’
But the old adage that a wellflowering po¯hutukawa heralds a good summer is just an urban myth. ‘‘They always reflect what happened in the past.’’
Wetter, warmer weather without extremes in temperature was usually good for the trees, he said.