Endemic. A popular urban native that has attractive glossy green leaves, with serrated edges when young and a spreading canopy growing to 10m. Its small red fruits attract Tui and Kereru. The leaves and oil are a natural insect repellent.
A lowland tree, Titoki prefers fertile alluvial soils or coastal sandy plains often growing with tawa and kohekohe. The fresh young growth is paler in colour with a reddish tinge. Flowering from spring into early summer,both male and female plants produce dark red-purple branching inflorescences. Male flowers have a ring of long-stalked stamens around a vestigial ovary while female flowers have short-stalked stamens. Scarlet seed capsules take a year to split revealing a shiny black seed surrounded by bright-red, fleshy tissue.
Drought-tolerant when established, but seedlings need shade and moist soil.
