With Christmas coming in the longest Summer days, Australia and New Zealand have a range of trees that flower spectacularly now, and so are called ‘Christmas trees’, even though most houses have a plastic or even real pine tree over the presents.
In Western Australia I grew up with the extremely showy Nuytsia floribunda, a medium sized tree which can be completely covered in bright orange/yellow flowers, right when the sun is guaranteed to be brightest. Victoria has it’s Christmas bush, New Zealand has the beautiful red pohutakawa (Meterosideros) which is a common street tree in Sydney, and Southern New South Wales has the red flowered Ceratopetalum, which is somewhat understated compared with the others.
On our Summer visits to Northern NSW I was always struck by a tree with white flowers in level drifts just above its branches, and hoped to plant one when we finally found a block. It turns out that we not only have a few here, but two are above the house, and when I saw one at a local nursery this week I was finally able to ask what it is.
The friendly guy there told me it’s a brown kurrajong, Commersonia bartramia, also called the Christmas Tree locally, which is fitting as the flowers sit over the branches much as snow would. The trees have a nice form too. In the main picture above the smaller tree on the left is in full flower, while the larger one on the right is just starting. The scent is mild and sweet, so they are good trees to have near the house. As their shade is only dappled and the bark is perennial, I’ve used them to house several of my orchids, which are doing well.