The Pohutukawa of Quinta do Palheiro Ferreiro

Funchal's list of monumental trees names nine more entries inside this one garden: a tulip tree, a til, a Queensland araucaria, an oak, an Atlas cedar, a camphor tree, a sequoia, a Canary pine and groups of planes. The one this page picks is the New Zealander. Metrosideros excelsa, the pohutukawa, grows wild on sea cliffs at the top of New Zealand's North Island and almost nowhere else, gripping rock with the aerial roots that hang off its older limbs. At home it flowers scarlet through the southern December, which is how it became New Zealand's Christmas tree. In Portugal it does the same thing in May and June, half a year out of step with its own name. This specimen is code 192 on the municipal table, entered as Metrosidero under Quinta do Palheiro Ferreiro, from the same 2008 regional survey that supplies the rest of Funchal's list. It carries no age and no measurement of any kind. Palheiro Gardens sits about 500 metres up in the hills east of the city, fifteen to twenty minutes by car or taxi, so this is the tree you plan a morning around rather than pass on a walk. Entry is 11 euros, six for residents and for anyone between fifteen and seventeen, free for children, and the gates open every day of the year except Christmas Day. If somebody has put a tape around this trunk, send us the number.