Our Christmas Tree.

Mention of the pohutukawa — for Christmastime and our New Zealand Christmas-tree are inseparably associated, at any rate in the North—inevitably brings up mind-pictures of that glorious tree on cliff and beachside for a thousand miles of coast. What a sight it is in flower these Christmas weeks, emblazoning all that rocky coast, bending over every sandy beach, burning with colour, at once the delight and the despair of the artist.

It seems to have its cycles of intense bloom. Every third year there is a more profuse showering of its deep-red blossom; a more bountiful meal of nectar for the honey-sucking birds.