Kowhai Time.

This is kowhai flowering time in the bush, and in many of our parks and gardens. New Zealand's lovely blossom of spring, which has come to be regarded as the Dominion's national flower, is now displaying its yellow spangles. The scarlet clianthus, which is called by the Maoris the Kowhai-ngutu-kaka, or parrot's-beak kowhai, because of the shape of the rich red flowers, is longer in blossom than the golden kowhai, and is always in leaf, unlike the yellow one, which produces its flowers while the branches are quite bare. But the yellow one is the beauty. The Maori appreciates the beauty of the golden tree. There is an expression in songs, “te ura o te kowhai”—“the glow of the kowhai,” and there are references to the beauty of the drooping clusters of blossoms reflected on the glassy waters of calm bays and on dark, smooth bush rivers.

The “kowhai floods” have been on in the ranges. It is just at this time of the year that you see the golden tree in its glory in such places as the shores of Lake Taupo and along the Wanganui River. If you happen to be up in the Taupo country in September you will see a salvage of groves and lines of kowhai along the pumice-sanded east coast of the lake, close to the road.

There are miles of kowhai along the banks of the Wanganui, and very lovely they are flaming against the wet and sombre bush; and they provide a feast of nectar for our sweetest native singing birds. But there is no need to go all the way to the Upper Wanganui to see the kowhai in abundance. At many places along our railway lines the traveller's eye will be attracted by the sight of the tree of the Maori spring all a-dangle with its golden shower.