TWO SUMMER BLOSSOMS

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 25, 30 January 1926, Page 21

TWO SUMMER BLOSSOMS

WHITE MANUKA AND POHUTUKAWA.

(By HILDA KEANE.)

This summer the manuka "raurikl* has really blossomed. After the rather uncertain dash of the starry largepetalled "kahikatoa" there was a pause. November came, a windy, somewhat rainy November. No tea-tree flowers this year, or, at least, none to talk 'about. Two weeks, three weeks! Then among the passing greys of its smaller ! sisters a small patch of snow-white, ■ white snow gleamed out on the hillside. A late clematis? No! For a few days later, standing at the windows that overlook the forest gullies, we saw slender plumes outtlimst against the green; and before November had quite fled every tall "white" manuka wore its crown of feathery flowers, White and whiter it grew as summer stole in with December, and the garden flowers faded in the heat, wilted, died. By Christmas its greeting was thrown over all the land. No wonder the bushmen called this the "white" tea-tree! One had often wondered. Up there in the tossing tree tops, the little clustering blossoms crushed so thickly together as to hide the gree.i. Above the myrtles and olives and bronzes of the bush the raurikis threw out their graceful feathers. Where one had roc even noticed the heath-like foliage, out came the slim, painted arms, lielicate hands of white were spread to the sky. The breezes stirred. Busily then waved the rauriki. Like dainty white maidens the branches danced and pirouetted, threw sweet light kisses to the blue. January! The manuka's snow is still thick in places, drifts of it in Mie hollows where the sun burns less fiercely. But brown patches are showing. Soon every swaying tree top will be russetred. It will look from the distance a3 if fire had passed over it. Then theautumn winds will rise, toss the high, trees, tear the hard seed-pods from their leafy nests and hurl them to the earth. Not for many years have we seen such blossoming of the heath-like manuka. Indeed, only a while ago we i had concluded that after a certain agethe "white" manuka must cease to bloom. How it has laughed at U3 and our conclusions! The Pohutukawa. Along the coasts it hangs, red, bo red, even at this, a mile's distance as the crow flies. Above the blue of the sheltered inlet we can pick out with ease the soft grey of its branch tips and the wealth of its bright flowering. When we walk to the nearest beaches great jewels spring in splendour from the rocky cliffs. They have not the hard blaze of the forest rata, whose red is harsher. Theirs is a softer beauty, a clustering mass of crimson rounding itself happily against the summer heaven and the deep blues of the sea. The twisting, solid, homely trunks and limbs. So like Auckland itself! Thrown with a careless ease against a beautiful background. Lavishing its glory upon an almost unnoticing world! "Clinging to a sprayscattered rock, or planted solemnly on a grassy beach sward! Unpretentious! Beautiful in the extreme, yet not caring or bothering about it! " What did the Maoris think about this seaside rata tree? Why did they call it "pohutukawa"? A Maori Legend. The ghostly spirits of the beloved dead made their silent way north and north, over river and hill, across mountain range and green valley. Can you see them, streaming forth, the frail wraiths of men that were, can you hear their wails as they pass by night through the gorges? Do you hear thf> trees moan as the torn hearts twist with the pain of their passing? On! On! Never pausing! The ridgD3 know their passage, the reeds bend under their flattened tread. -At last the loom o£ the wild rocks! At last the great sea! Reinga is before them. The goal is near. : The spirit army pushes forward with nraffled, shuffling steps. Now is the time! _ The very extremity of the earth Is theirs. Over the - surging sea hangs the mighty limb of a very giant of a tree, guarding the underworld of Po. Its fallen stamens have painted the sea scarlet. Trembling, afraid for what is there beneath the angry waves. Sad, so sad, to cast adrift from those they ioved, the wraiths halt fearfu'ly. Must they plunge and leave for ever the smiling human world with its hungers and satisfactions, with its hopes and fuliilments, with its wars and bloody triumphs? Must little fuller* twine rerer more about the mother's? Must lover never ="f> again the quick, warm rush of blood? Must eye novjr light agi;in to tlie warrior's home-coniiug ? Aue! Aue! Alas! Why so soon? But the time is come. Menacing is the movement of the great bough! Loud is the roar of the ocean! Harsh and hard is the note of tho wind! They plunge, one after another, passing through ;i cave that is hang ivith wreathing seaweeds. The spirits-have passed over , Pohutukawa! Spray-sprinklfd tree! Sad times were ti> con>e. Fur m I Honfri's wars mj many, many spirits passed by the way of the spray-sprinkled one. that tiie great branch bent and bent, till at last only the whitened stump remained, gaunt reminder of the j days of mirth and of laughter, relic of mysticism and of pride. Is it there now? Or has civilisation done its work, and torn the last outpost down? That, anyway, is the story of the pohutukawa. But what care w r e to-day? Our beaches fill with happy children, I the "Christmas trees" wear their splendour, the waves lap against the warm sands, and the skies are ever so blue White tea-tree on the hills, red pohu-hik-awa about the gleaming sea Mne blue in the heavens and on the wide' wide sea. Red, white and blue our beautiiul homeland! Who could ask j for anything more fair!