This is a pohutukawa - a beautiful, salt and wind hardy native NZ tree. In the summer, right around Christmas time, these trees are covered with bright red flowers. Over the past few weeks, there has been a fungi called Myrtle Rust found in many western parts of NZ. Pohutukawa, feijoa and manuka seem to be species that are susceptible to this disease. Let's hope that it doesn't wreck havoc with all these species. At this stage, scientists believe that the spores may have made their way to NZ from Australia, on the prevailing westerly winds.
Wonderful capture love the perspective and presentation Dianne, lets hope a solution can be found quickly to eradicate this Fungi before it can take hold:)
I was asking Brian the other day about the trees round his new house. There is a pohutukawa tree in his garden so he sent me a photo, it's still in full leaf. Your trees don't seem to shed their leaves as much as ours.
The first place the fungus was found in Taranaki is only 1 kilometre from my house. It is a real concern and hopefully they can manage to eradicate it. This is a lovely photo of a pohutukawa. Great silhouette.
At first i was going to say I hope the fungi doesn't come over to our trees, but I read on and you think it came from here! I haven't seen any damage in our trees - and we have a lot of them here on the coast. Great silhouette capture too :)
Magnificent tree, do hope you Kiwis are able to eradicate 'our' rust. Apologies for 'sending' it your way. The worst plant pests we have here are imports.
