rātā that flowers blood red from cliff and canopy

Size
Height: 15–25 m
Lifespan
500–1000 years
Diet
Produces masses of brilliant red flowers (sometimes yellow) rich in nectar, attracting tūī, bellbirds, kākā, and geckos. Flowers followed by small, dry seed capsules that release tiny, fluffy seeds that are wind-dispersed. Northern rātā often starts life as a strangler, germinating in canopy of a host tree.
Habitat
Forests of New Zealand from Northland to Stewart Island, but two main forms have very different habits. Northern rātā (Metrosideros robusta) grows in lowland and montane forests of North Island and northern South Island. Southern rātā (Metrosideros umbellata) grows in colder south – South Island, Stewart Island, and subantarctic islands. One is a strangler. One is a pillar. Both spectacular.
Range
Northern rātā found in lowland and montane forests of North Island and northern South Island. Southern rātā found in colder regions of South Island, Stewart Island, and subantarctic islands. Most common in Fiordland, West Coast, and Stewart Island.
Endemism
Endemic
Main Threats
Possum browsing is the primary threat – possums love tender new growth and can kill trees through repeated defoliation. Also threatened by habitat loss from forest clearance, and by myrtle rust which affects new growth. Northern rātā is less common than it once was, particularly in lowland forests.
Population
Not Threatened, though both species have suffered from habitat loss and browsing by possums, which love tender new growth. Northern rātā is less common than it once was, particularly in lowlands. Southern rātā is still abundant in wild forests of South Island and Stewart Island. Neither rare, but both treasured.
Conservation Status
Not Threatened
The southern cousin of pōhutukawa, sharing its crimson flowers and tough, leathery leaves. But where pōhutukawa grows on coast, rātā grows in forest. And where pōhutukawa is a tree of cliffs, northern rātā is a tree of canopy – a strangler that begins its life in branches of another tree. What makes it special? The two lives of northern rātā. It starts as a tiny seed, dropped by a bird onto branch of a host tree – often a rimu, tōtara, or kahikatea. Seed germinates and grows into an epiphyte, a plant that lives on surface of another plant. It sends down long, thin roots that dangle in air, searching for ground. When roots reach soil, they thicken and grow, wrapping around trunk of host. Over decades, rātā strangles its host, its roots fusing into a massive, woody column. Host tree dies and rots away, leaving a hollow, twisted pillar of rātā roots – a strangler fig of southern forest. A mature northern rātā is not a solid trunk. It is a cage of fused roots, a living sculpture that once wrapped around a tree now gone. Southern rātā is different. It grows in cold, wet forests of south, where summers are short and winters long. It does not start as an epiphyte. It grows from ground, a solid, straight trunk reaching 20 metres or more. Bark rough and corky, leaves small and leathery, flowers a brilliant, fiery red. Flowers are glory of both species. In summer, rātā erupts in clusters of crimson stamens – same fireworks display as pōhutukawa, but somehow wilder, more remote. Flowers filled with nectar, and tūī, bellbird, and kākā go mad for them. A rātā in full flower is a beacon in forest, a tower of red against green. To stand under a northern rātā is to stand under a cage of roots. Trunk not solid – a lattice, a twisted column of fused wood, hollow in centre where host tree once stood. Branches spread wide, leaves dark green, flowers red. A tree that grew out of death, a tree that killed to live. To stand under a southern rātā in Fiordland is to stand under a pillar of red. Trunk straight, bark rough, flowers brilliant against grey sky. Rain falling, moss thick, birds singing. A tree of wild south, a tree of rain and wind.