THE CHRISTMAS TREE - OF NEW ZEALAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 2649, 21 December 1904, Page 76

THE CHRISTMAS TREE - - OF NEW ZEALAND.

By E. S. Grossixaxx, M.A.

(For the Witness.)

All along the northern shores of New Zealand, on steep cliffs, and bold bluffs, and on little coastal islets, there grows the most beautiful giant myrtle of the south. This is the Metrosideros tomentosa of the scientists, better known as the Christmas tree, or as the ''pohutukawa,'' which in the native language means "spray-sprinkled." It is the nurseling of the sea, and is the hardiest, boldest, and most adventurous of all our native trees. In the dense shades of the forest jungle, the pohutukawa cannofc find room to breatJie, but it exults in the wildest winds, and bathes its roots and long branches in the tide. Beyond the winding neck of the North Island it is found nowhere else in the world, though a kindired variety is said to have been seen on the Kermadecs. It is the pride and glory of the Auckland Province alone. Round the shores of the Waitemata Harbour, in all the innumerable little bays and coves, its tortuous trunks and twisted branches cling to the face of bare cliffs, of yellow clay and of sandstone, and at midsummer its gorgeous bloom flecks with crimson the silvery blue of the unruffled waters below. The lovely bay or estuary of ths Mahurangi and of many another river like it is covered profusely with pohutukawa, and the blaze of its crimson flowers lighting up the delicate blue transparencies of sea and sky and distant islets and mountain ranges is a vision to dream about. On the wild west coast of the north, where groves of forest trees and palms open out to the ocean, there ri-e up here and there in the sea towering masses of rock and earth, known to camping parties as the Lion, the Monk's Head, the Pinnacle, or the Sugarloaf, from the fantastic shapes they assume. Above their wave-washed bases, high up on steep cliffs, where the coarse grass can scarcely cling, dwarf pohutukawas, "'cabled to the rock with ropes of their own branches," light up the monumental mounds with splashes of redi blossom. On three-peaked Rangitoto ("Blood-stained Heaven"), an island volcano in the Hauraki G-ulf in ' Thill view of Auckland, these dwarf specimens flourish in some marvellous fashion on the basaltic rock.

It is said that at one time the tree was plentiful in some districts much farther south than Auckland, but there is no certain authority for such a statement. Although it chooses .the wildest native haunts, it makes a handsome garden tree, ' losing under cultivation much of its weird, j fantastic irregularity of shape. It can be seen in the parks and reserves and private gardens in the #wn of Auckland. Colonial nurserymen grow it easily from seed, and, j as a garden plant it flourishes as far south j as Banks Peninsula, where the climate is j not unlike that of Devon. Probably it j could ba reared successfully by' the seaside '< in the South of England, and during its ' flowering period it would be an ornament ] to any garden. Compared to the pohutu- i kawa, the manuka, which I" am told has ] been tried in some English hothouses, bears a pale and insignificant blossom, and even the scarlet kowliai, which is now quite common in San Francisco, is only a flamboyant dwarf. It thrives equally well ow rock or clay, or on mud flats, or the moimdu of black ironsandi and earth. <

The trees reach the height oi 70ft or more. The trunk and branch steins are of a, dull greyish brown, knotted and twisted like strands of ropes, and they look as strong and tough as iron. The wood 's very hard to split, but when once chopped up it makes excellent firewood, as picnickers and lonely settlers can testify. It has been found useful for building ships, and foi special parts of bridges, wheels, and for planks where strength is required. It is believed' to be superior to the oak in durability, and is one of the few, kinds of New Zealand timber that is proof against the ravages of the teredo. The inner bark has medicinal properties, and was used by the Maoris as a remedy for dysentery, inflammation, and gunshot and gangrenous wounds. The main branches are often massive, and wide-spreading, and are twisted into all manner of strange, irregular shapes by wind and weather, and by their own freakish disposition. The branchlets are covered with hoary down. So, too, is the underside of the leaves when they reach maturity, the upper surface being of darkest green, but when young both surfaces are of whitish, downy green. They turn scarlet before dropping off, but die an individual death, and never know collectively the rich shades of autumn, for the tree is an evergreen. Like the rose, the pohutukawa has a brief time of splendour^ lasting a week or two with each tree, somewhere between the end) of October and *he end) of January. Old settlers say that it is only in every alternate year that it can be seen at its 'best. About Christmas the multitude of downy buds bursts into brilliant upright tassels of rose-red, powdered at the tips with fine gold-dust. The small red petals are lost to the eye in the blaze of the filaments. The effect of a grove of these trees, when every bough is a mass of crimson bloom against the deep sapphire of the sky, is beyond the power of words to describe. I remember waking early one morning in a camp by the West Coast, and seeing through the tent door, at the bottom of a sand dune, a flowering pohutukawa side by sicb with a palm tree reflected from the motionless surface of a pool, and the feeling in my mind was something akin to awe at the marvellous beauty of creation. Strange to say, the flower loses most of its charm when gathered, and when placed indoors in a vase it looks comparatively- dull, sombre, and dead. The polmtukawa is no doubt the "bloodred myrtle bloom" of Kipling's flower poem, and it may even be the "scarlet tree" of Stevenson's child verses, for Ste-

venson, too, visited Auckland. Browning' 3 friend, Domett, has a minute description of its appaarance andi haunts in "Ranolf and Amolna" : Many a rocky, rugged bluff, With crimson, blossoming boscage rough O'er beetling crest a^d crevice hui%. Pohutukawa is found along the river and lake of Taiawera in the Rotorua- Wonderlaud, where Domett placed his love scenes, as well as by the shores of the inland) lake, Waikaremoana (Sea of the Rippling Waters). Probably Domett, and also the other poets, confused it with rata, a parasitic myrtle that is much better known, as it grows throughout both the Islands of New Zealand. The rata, however, is inferior to the pohutukawa, which might, much more aptly than its duller rival, be said to "pale the crimson sunset." ISTo one can doubt, though Domett never mentions its name, what tree was before his mind's eye when he wrote the following lines" : — Twisting, arching overhead, Dark, serpentining boughs were spread; And arching, twisting, down below, Stems serpentining seemed to grow. Sun-bathed arose the dome-like roof, A straiiige/Iy splendid, wondrous woof. Wlioso dark-groen glistening foliage seern«3

Thick over-showered with shining, snow,

Except where b!cod-red masses gleamed, Such luminous crimson, all aglow ! As if whole trees, 'mid heaped snow showers, Were turning into burning flowers.

It is no wonder that this tree fascinated the imagination of the colour-loving Maoris. Even the native birds, the tui and the bell-birds, the nightingales of the antipodes, were lured into captivity byits brightness. Maori fowlers used it as a bait, and called the birds to sip the honey from its cups by a bird-call, then, with a sudden jerk, ensnared them with a noose.

The pohutukawa inspired two of the most striking native legends. The traditions of the Maoris say tSat their ancestors came to New Zealand from the faroff island of Hawaiki, and landed here in the north. When the first canoe, the Arawa, got near to the- shores of Aotearoa (the Long White Cloudi) they saw upon the sea-coast masses of beautiful crimson, the colour mirrored in a glassy sea. Then Tauniniki, one of the chiefs, exulted, and cried out to the other wanderers, "Behold, in this new land are countless red ornaments, far finer than those we brought from Hawaiki." And so saying, he took from his head his scarlet fillet, and tossed it into the sea. The other chiefs did likewise. Then they brought their canoe to the shore, and they ran to gather the red blooms, but no sooner were these touched than they fell to pieces. Then all the chiefs were grieved because they had thrown away their hereditary treasures for the passing beauty of a flower.

As this legend refers to the first doming of the Maoris, so the second one, according to a recent interpretation, narrates the final departure when the spirit travels back again to the remote ; sland from which came their ancestral race. On the- farthest northern shores of New Zealand, where the land tapers away, there stands, amid a wilderness of sandhills, a steep headland. Its precipices descend sheer into the depths oi ocean, and at its base is a yawning cavern fringed! with, snaky seaweed. On this cliff grows a giant pohutukawa, and its roots and branches go down to the mouth of the cavern. The headland is Te Reinga, the World's End, and the- cliff is the Spirits' Leap. The pohutukawa is the tree of fate, "grim, gaunt, and weird, a leafy portal to the gates of dark and mystic worlds." Here to this utmost verge of the land journey the souls of the dead, gathering on the sands like flocks of the kuaka on autumn nights before they sail away to an unknown region (Asia). When the Shades have assembled they chant a. farewell to the living, and dance a wild war dance; then they disappear in the darkness of the cavern.

The pohutukawa was one of the first plants in New Zealand discovered by white men. It was- found by the naturalist Banks (afterwards Sir Joseph Banks) and by Dr Solander, who accompanied Cook on his first visit to the antipodes. Banks does not seem to have distinguished it from the rata. Possibly it is the plant Cook mentions as a kind) of myrtle, growing on cliffs by t!i3 seaside, but, if so, his brief reference is not accurate, for its leaves are neither spotted nor round.

The early settlers of the north, whoss hearts were still in England, fondly hailed it as a substitute for holly, and because it blooms at Christmas time they gave it the name of the Christmas tree. In the town of Auckland, and in the couuiry around, it is still used for Christmas decorations in churches, houses, and shops, and a spray is sometimes sr.-ck in the pudding instead of holly. But the present generation of New Zealanders have their own associations with this season, those that spring-naturally from the scenes 'of their childhood. Holly and snow are to them niere legends and traditions, and the name of Christmas brings up visions of white tents, merry camping parties, summer skies, an Si seas with foam-fringed, rolling billows, and of great' trees of the Christmas flower budning like a tropical sunset.