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POHUTUKAWA
Christmas Tree
Metrosideros excelsa

A tree that prefers the immediate shoreline of many parts of the North Island of New Zealand and has leaves with minute hairs on the underside that defend the tree against any excess of salt in the air, or sea spray.
Its roots are sometimes an anchor for the northern rockoyster, its branches home to the nests of seabirds. "Pohutukawa" is said to mean "splashed by spray", its honey has an unique salty flavour.
The "Christmas tree" name is a reminder of the season when the pohutukawa blooms, its red blossoms were used to adorn Christmas trees of English colonists, before artificial tinsel became the norm.
In the Maori world, to mention that a person "has slid down the pohutukawa root" is a poetic way of saying that he has travelled to the world of his ancestors.
 

Cape Reinga, (seen as the departure point for Maori to other worlds) there stood a pohutukawa tree on the cliffs.  The red blossoms of the tree belong in this proverb: "The cast-away plumes of mahina" (When an article is found, and those who posses it do not wish to give it up to the original owner, this may be quoted).

The feathers were therefore thrown overboard.  When the chief landed and climbed the cliffs he found only pohutukawa blossoms, which when picked, soon  drooped in the sun.
He therefore went in search of his lost feathers, and found them in the possession of a man called Mahina, who would not give them up.  Hence the proverb - "The cast-away plumes of Mahina".