Flak Magazine: Pohutukawa Trees, 02-08-02

For a start, like humans, it likes hanging out on beaches. It begins growing in crevices on seemingly completely bare rocks. Then, as it gets bigger, gnarly roots form out from trunks and branches. In fact, the roots are able to grow in air over surfaces as they search for pockets of soil and moisture.

Roots that can grow in air are pretty impressive.

Next: The Pohutukawa Tree is wider than it is tall — a very satisfying shape for a tree. It grows to 20 meters high by 35 meters wide — that's about 22 yards high and 38 wide, for those of you still using the imperial system. Lots of long, low branches hang over the sand. They provide shade and great places to sit, climb and hang beach towels.

It is a beautiful tree — covered with shiny leaves, dark green on top, silvery-gray underneath. It has evolved to withstand salt water, and the name Pohutukawa means "splashed by spray" in Maori.

Every December, summer here at the bottom of the world, Pohutukawa Trees burst out in vibrant, star-burst-shaped red flowers. So they are also known by the rather twee name of the New Zealand Christmas Tree.

But wait — there's more. Pohutukawa honey is sweet, with a wonderful, subtle, salty taste. The wood is hard and strong, and was often used in ship-building by whalers and sealers. Here's how a New Zealand timber seller describes it: "It is extremely unusual to find a straight millable stem and indeed [the tree] was used extensively by the pioneering sailors to fashion ship members, with thousands of elbows being harvested for their naturally curved shapes."

Who knew that ships had elbows?

In pre-European times, the indigenous Maori used the wood to make tools: fern root beaters, paddles, weapons, spade blades and digging sticks. They also used Pohutukawa bark and nectar in traditional medicines, to cure dysentery, stop bleeding and remedy coughs and colds.

TThe oldest Pohutukawa would be singled out for ceremonies considered necessary both for warfare and the health of children. After a child was born, the placenta was suspended in the tree's branches. This was considered necessary not just for the good health of the newborn, but also for the speedy recovery of the mother.

How much more useful could a tree be?

The Pohutukawa tree lives to be a thousand years old.

When you've reached the end of your life in New Zealand, the Maori say, your spirit travels right to the very tip of the North Island, to the end of Cape Reinga.

Clinging to the edge there is a small, weather-beaten Pohutukawa tree called Te Reinga, which guards the entrance to a cave through which the spirits of the dead travel on their way to join their ancestors. If you say that someone has slid down the Pohutukawa root, it's another way of saying they've shuffled off this mortal coil.

So. Pohutukawa trees are friendly, beautiful and useful. I'm sure I saw at least one in Hobbiton in Lord of the Rings.

Before you slide down the Pohutukawa root yourself, I recommend you visit New Zealand in summer and check out this most excellent of trees.

— Katie Brockie (katie@taylormade.co.nz)