Sidestep: pohutukawa & ōhiʻa lehua
Just an irrelevant sidestep about the Pohutukawa tree and the ʻōhiʻa lehua tree of Hawaii.
We all know the story of the pohutukawa tree growing in Spain. If not you can read the article here… - http://losarbolesinvisibles.com/tag/la-coruna/ (you'll need to translate it and a popup box should appear to do so)
New Zealand
Metrosideros excelsa (Native name - Pōhutukawa, Also called the New Zealand Christmas tree).
Legends tell of Tawhaki, a young Maori warrior, who attempted to find heaven to seek help in avenging the death of his father. He fell to earth and the crimson flowers are said to represent his blood. A gnarled, twisted pohutukawa on the windswept cliff top at Cape Reinga, the northern tip of New Zealand, has become of great significance to many New Zealanders. For Maori this small, venerated pohutukawa is known as ‘the place of leaping’. It is from here that the spirits of the dead begin their journey to their traditional homeland of Hawaiki. From this point the spirits leap off the headland and climb down the roots of the 800-year-old tree, descending into the underworld on their return journey.
Hawaii
Metrosideros polymorpha. (ʻŌhiʻa lehua, Pele's flower, the fire tree).
Ohia lehua Metrosideros collina. Pohutukawa belongs to the genus Metrosideros. In Hawaiian mythology, ʻŌhiʻa and Lehua were two young lovers. The volcano goddess Pele fell in love with the handsome ʻŌhiʻa and approached him, but he turned down her advances. In a fit of jealousy, Pele transformedʻŌhiʻa into a tree. Lehua was devastated by this transformation and out of pity the other gods turned her into a flower and placed her upon the ʻōhiʻa tree.Other versions say that Pele felt remorseful but was unable to reverse the change, so she turned Lehua into a flower herself. It is said that when a lehua flower is plucked from an ʻōhiʻa tree, the sky will fill with rain representing the separated lovers' tears.
Pohutukawa and Ōhiʻa lehua belong to a large and important family, the Myrtaceae. This family consists of about 3000 species of tropical and warm temperate trees, shrubs and occasionally vines. The family is named for the mediterranean myrtle, but the family is far more characteristic of, and reaches its greatest diversity in, the Southern Hemisphere, particularly South America and Australia. Eucalyptus, guava, clove, and bottlebrush are members of the Myrtaceae that provide timber, fruit, spice, oils and garden plants. In New Zealand the family is represented by some of our best known plants like rata, kanuka, manuka, and some lesser well known, but nevertheless significant, plants like swamp maire and ramarama. By having both fleshy and dryfruited Myrtaceae, New Zealand demonstrates ancient links to both Australia and tropical Asia. Pohutukawa adds a further biogeographical link with the south-west Pacific.
The ancestor probably occupied the mobile islands of the SW Pacific in early Tertiary time but as given rise also to modern species that have gone beyond the coastlines and entered the great forests of Aotearoa, creating towering trees and forest lianes. One of the unique characteristics of the Metrosideros - that helped it colonize bare rock as in Hawaii - is the ability to form roots from the branches.
