The pohutukawa is New Zealand’s Christmas Tree. Many of them surround our beach property in New Zealand’s Bay of Islands. It grows in coastal areas and can take root in the most unlikely of rocky terrain with little soil and daily soakings of sea water. It sprouts beautiful spiky crimson flowers in December and looks elegantly gnarled and green leaved the year round. The pohutukawa is a New Zealand national icon with deeply spiritual meaning for Maori people. In Maori legend the red flowers represent the blood of Tawhaki, a spiritual ancestor who revealed the way to heaven. Some pohutukawa are sacred because the placenta of newborn infants have been offered to them. One of the most sacred trees hangs to the cliffs at Cape Reinga, the northernmost point of New Zealand. From here the spirits of the dead leave for the next world. So the rich symbolism of the pohutukawa connects the beginning and the end of human life and the stories which bind us.