Pohutukawa

Value to bees

Nectar

Very high

Pollen

High

As a honey crop

Major honey crop — yields a surplus in good years

Which bees, and why

Worked heavily by honey bees and, as with rewarewa, evolved for birds — tui and bellbirds are the natural pollinators of the brush-flowered New Zealand myrtles.

Worth knowing

A heavy summer nectar and pollen source on coasts with few alternatives.

Flowering

In flower

November to January (southern hemisphere)

Peaks around Christmas, which is the origin of the name. Flowering intensity varies markedly between years.

When nectar flows

Heavy in a good flowering year, and modest in a poor one. The tree flowers unevenly between seasons.

Year-to-year variation

Variable between years and geographically limited to northern coastal areas. Pohutukawa honey is genuinely regional in a way few honeys are.

What it does to the honey

Pale and creamy, mild with a distinctive salty-mineral edge that reflects the coastal position of the trees. It sets to a soft smooth texture.

Growing it

Conditions

Coastal, frost-tender, and exceptionally tolerant of salt spray and poor rocky ground. It will not survive a hard frost.

Size

10-20 m tall with a very wide spreading crown, and frequently growing horizontally from cliff faces.

Native range

The coastal north of New Zealand's North Island, and widely planted beyond that.

Suits

Large gardens

• One of the few trees that genuinely thrives in salt-laden coastal wind.
• Frost-tender — it fails in cold inland positions.
• Threatened across its range by myrtle rust, a fungal disease now established in New Zealand, and by possum browsing.

What it looks like

A spreading, often multi-trunked coastal tree with grey-green leathery leaves felted white beneath, and masses of brilliant crimson flowers made almost entirely of stamens — the petals are negligible.