 Pohutukawa| Metrosideros excelsa, thomasii, kermadecensi| Lifespan| NZ Christmas Bush
I'm in Brisbane Australia and found these don't live that long.
In my experience they have little tolerance to drought, have an unusual root system where even aerial roots hang and there's some bizaar stump configuration between that of a ficus and a bottle brush.
Anyway, often I find trees with large dead patches/branches etc. Numerous small borer holes (2mm max dia) in the light dead branches which are brittle and decayed. Parts of the tree may be live but overall it looks like crap. They could even have flowers on parts of it.
They seem to have about the same lifespan as many wattles, they seem to be dying around 20 years to maybe 30 years of age.
The death pattern seems fairly much the same from the coastal sandy Gold Coast to the clays of Brisbane.
They can be between a large shrub size say 3m tall and wide to small tree say 6m tall and 4m wide. The one I took out today had a great place to live with plenty of mulch, other trees close by were OK.
So what are your experiences with this tree? |