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 The pōhutukawa is a large, wide-spreading tree, growing to about 20 metres in height, with a canopy spreading 40 or 50 metres wide and a trunk 2 metres in diameter near the base in favourable conditions. However it may be only a metre of two tall when clinging to rocks constantly exposed to sea-spray. It is the pre-eminent coast-line tree of the warmer parts of Te Ika a Maui (the North Island), although in many places its viability has been jeopardized by the depredations of possums and developers. It is one of the first plants to colonize bare volcanic rocks, and, not surprisingly therefore, is also found inland around some of the lakes of the volcanic plateau. Like the kauri, with which it shares iconic status as a national symbol, the pōhutukawa has been planted extensively and successfully well outside its natural range. So successfully in fact that it has become an invasive weed on New Zealand's South Island west coast, and also in California and a few other places where it was originally a horticultural introduction. However, in the Galician City of La Coruña, Spain, it has been adopted as the City's official flower.
As might be inferred from its generic name (Metrosideros is derived from the Greek words metra "heartwood" and sideron "iron") the tree has a very hard, dense wood. This was (and is) much esteemed by boat builders because of its durability in water, natural curvature, and immunity from attack by the notorious "ship worms" -- bivalve marine molluscs of the genus Teredo which can tunnel into wood with the help of bacteria in their gills, and do considerable damage to boat hulls and other wooden objects the world over. Māori used it traditionally for paddles, clubs, and other weapons, as well as hammers, mauls, kō (digging sticks), and fernroot beaters.
The branchlets and undersurfaces of the leaves are covered with a tomentum of dense white hairs, which disappear with age. The tree is adept at clinging to cliffs and rock faces. On level ground the branches often produce an abundance of aerial roots which never quite reach the ground. The roots at the bottom of cliffs and rocks at the waters edge can function a bit like mangrove roots -- with mussels and oysters adhering to those touching the intertidal zone. This intimate association with the sea is reflected in some Māori plant whakapapa (often essentially ecological charts) which make the pōhutukawa a child of Tangaroa, god of the ocean, rather than Tāne, god of the forest.
The tiny, almost microscopic seeds of the pōhutukawa are easily carried huge distances by wind, and molecular studies indicate that all the plants of the genus Metrosideros, now found in New Caledonia, the Bonin Islands, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, Samoa, Hawaii and most of the rest of Eastern Polynesia, can be traced back to an ancestor in Aotearoa. These include the Hawai'ian 'ōhia, Metrosideros polymorpha, which, like its countepart in Aotearoa, is adept in colonizing lava flows and other rocky habitats. It has been made the floral symbol of the island of Hawai'i. The Hawaiian word is cognate with Māori kāhika, an alternative name for the pōhutukawa.
 The words hutukawa and pōhutukawa both incorporate the ancient word-root *butun, carried into Proto-Polynesian as *futu, referring to the pan-tropical tree Barringtonia asiatica. The modifier kawa "bitter", and the derivative prefix pō- (signifying something like the English suffix -ish) indicate that the name was applied to indicate a tree reminiscent of the Barringtonia, but not identical to it. The pōhutukawa is indeed reminiscent of the Barringtonia: it is an impressive, sometimes massive tree associated with the sea and when flowering bearing showy flowers with numerous, long, fillament-type stamens. The Barringtonia's flowers (illustrated on the left) are white, with white stamens tinged with purple. Those of the pōhutakawa are similar in form but normally flaming red in appearance, although yellow, pink, orange, and (much more rarely) white variants are sometimes found. The pōhutukawa seems to have much more in common with the tropical futu than with the trees that bear the cognate name pō'utukava in Rarotonga -- but there are other links between the Rarotongan and New Zealand plants. See the pages for *futu and *pōfutukava (links at the top of this page) for further information about the differences and similarities between the pōhutukawa and its tropical namesakes.
The bark of the pōhutukawa had a role in traditional medicine. Its analgesic properties were useful for lessening toothache, and an infusion of the bark was used for treating sore gums. The bark also has anti-inflamatory and coagulant properties which were found useful for treating wounds and stemming bleeding in cuts and abrasions. An infusion of the bark was also used for treating diarrhoea and dysentery.
The nectar was collected in ipu hue (calabashes) and sipped through a straw -- as well as being a delectable sweet drink, it was also an effective treatment for sore throats. The thick, white pōhutakawa honey is much esteemed and marketed commercially. Robert Vennell (The Meaning of Trees, p. 204) reports that Queen Elizabeth II is said to get regular shipments sourced from the pōhutukawa forest on Rangitoto Island in the Hauraki Gulf.
The Pōhutukawa in Poetry and Proverbs .
 The pōhutukawa is an iconic tree for most citizens of Aotearoa/New Zealand -- its crimson blossoms herald the warmth of summer, and its strength and tenacity also symbolize widely-held conceptions of core national values. Although there are no direct references to the pōhutukawa in either the poems collected in Ngā Mōteatea or the proverbs in Nga Pēpeha a ngā Tīpuna, several of the sayings in the latter collection refer back to significance of the pōhutukawa as a reminder of the folly of impulsively swapping a tangible asset for an imagined gain. One of the first explorers to reach Aotearoa, sighting the brilliance of the pōhutakawa blossoms festooning the trees along the shoreline near what is now the town of Opotiki, threw his sacred chaplet of scarlet amokura tail feathers overboard, saying he would replace it with "te kura ki uta" -- the chaplet on the shore. That was not the end of the matter, of course, and this is hinted at in the proverb collected by Mead and Grove:
Kia mau ki te kura whero, kei mau koe ki te kura tāwhiwhi kei waiho koe hei whakamōmona mō te whenua tangata
Hold fast to the valued treasure not to the illusory treasure, lest you be left as fertilizer for the human land.
[Mead & Grove 1313, p.215]
There is perhaps also a hint of this in the poet Allen Curnow's evocation of the pōhutukawa, five centuries after the sighting of "Te kura ki uta", in his poem "Spectacular blossom":
.... It is an ageless wind
That loves with knives, it knows our need, it flows
Justly, simply as water greets the blood
And woody tumours burst in scarlet spray.
An old man's blood spills bright as a girl's
On beaches where the knees of light crash down.
These dying ejaculate their bloom.
[A. Curnow, "Spectacular Blossom", in I. Wedde & Harvey McQueen, The Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse (1995), pp.200-201]
This echoes the tradtional saying "Te kanohi o Tāwhaki" -- the eye of Tawhaki, in reference to the brilliant red flowers of rātā (Metrosideros robusta), and sometimes also pōhutukawa, recalling the fall from the heavens of the demigod Tawhaki, who as he fell plucked out his eyes and threw them on the rāta and, in some versions of the event, also the pōhutukawa, hence the brilliant red blossoms of both trees. (M&G 2315)
A pōhutukawa is also in the background of the proverbial question:
I pāea koia Te Reinga?
Is Te Reinga blocked? [M&G 895]
The entrance to Te Reinga, the departure point of spirits heading for the underworld, was marked by sn ancient pōhutukawa tree down which the spirits would slide into the cavern below. The question is an admonition to a war monger, inviting death for himself and others.
One of the most compelling plays by a New Zealand author, Bruce Mason's The Pohutukawa Tree uses an ancient pōhutukawa and a bitter argument about its fate as a symbol of the struggle between tradition and modernity. The poet Lauris Edmond also wrote explicitly about the Pōhutukawa, in a poem beginning:
Red; blood red. Crimson wreaths upon
the branches' royal architraves; stained-
glass sun, sharp against the harbour.
and ending:
Outside there is no cold astringent winter air
but railway platforms, risky highways, fake
affection's sour taste in the heart; the trees.
Needles of blood are falling through the rain.
[L. Edmond, "Pohutukawa", Selected Poems 1975-1994 (Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 1994), pp.180-1]
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