Pseudowintera colorata - NZ Pepper Tree or Horopito
This is one of the most distinctive of our native plants but is totally under planted and undervalued in New Zealand gardens. It has wonderful coloured leaves joined onto a very dark almost black stem. It makes an excellent garden plant for sunny places or cooler south facing areas. It should be planted in every garden and widely used in the landscape.
It is a slow growing shrub or small tree in the garden making it ideal as a low maintenance plant. It grows well in a variety of soil conditions and will adapt to situations like hot dry sunny places as well as cool damp places.
In Canterbury it is a very common plant on the open hills as part of the second growth of native plants. It can withstand harsh conditions while still retaining its colourful yellow – green, alternate leaves which are blotched and/or marked with pinky red to red wine like colours above and the underside of the leaves are covered in whitish hairs. However when it is growing in sheltered bush areas as under story the leaves are often larger and more colourful.
There are now some stable cultivars of this plant. There is the potential to identify and propagate more cultivars to suit a variety of conditions to suit New Zealand gardens.
The flowers are inconspicuous, yellowish/green in September to December and are followed by a small berrylike fruit with two to four seeds.
The root system is compact is near the surface which means it likes to have a layer of mulch covering the roots. This root system makes it easy to transplant allowing it to be easily transplanted around the garden.
The wood is a reddish colour and in earlier times was used for inlay work.
The name pepper tree comes from the aromatic but rather pungent taste of the leaves. Maori women used the leaves when weaning a child. The leaves were crushed and rubbed on the breasts to give them a bitter taste. The sap was also used to cure skin diseases. The bark is very aromatic and has been used as an astringent and tonic.
The leaves when crushed into a decoction was often used as medicine by bushmen and called Maori painkiller.
The genus Winterii was named after Captain Winter who accompanied Sir Francis Drake to the Magellan Straits in 1578. Pseudowintera, which means resembling Wintera has only three species in the world all endemic (native) to New Zealand. Colorata refers to the colouring of the leaves.
It can be seen growing in open native bush in the North Island from the Hunua Ranges south, right through the South Island and on Banks peninsula it is the dominant tree in many places, and Stewart Island.
More photos on my Pinterest page Pseudowintera.
It is a slow growing shrub or small tree in the garden making it ideal as a low maintenance plant. It grows well in a variety of soil conditions and will adapt to situations like hot dry sunny places as well as cool damp places.
In Canterbury it is a very common plant on the open hills as part of the second growth of native plants. It can withstand harsh conditions while still retaining its colourful yellow – green, alternate leaves which are blotched and/or marked with pinky red to red wine like colours above and the underside of the leaves are covered in whitish hairs. However when it is growing in sheltered bush areas as under story the leaves are often larger and more colourful.
There are now some stable cultivars of this plant. There is the potential to identify and propagate more cultivars to suit a variety of conditions to suit New Zealand gardens.
The flowers are inconspicuous, yellowish/green in September to December and are followed by a small berrylike fruit with two to four seeds.
The root system is compact is near the surface which means it likes to have a layer of mulch covering the roots. This root system makes it easy to transplant allowing it to be easily transplanted around the garden.
The wood is a reddish colour and in earlier times was used for inlay work.
The name pepper tree comes from the aromatic but rather pungent taste of the leaves. Maori women used the leaves when weaning a child. The leaves were crushed and rubbed on the breasts to give them a bitter taste. The sap was also used to cure skin diseases. The bark is very aromatic and has been used as an astringent and tonic.
The leaves when crushed into a decoction was often used as medicine by bushmen and called Maori painkiller.
The genus Winterii was named after Captain Winter who accompanied Sir Francis Drake to the Magellan Straits in 1578. Pseudowintera, which means resembling Wintera has only three species in the world all endemic (native) to New Zealand. Colorata refers to the colouring of the leaves.
It can be seen growing in open native bush in the North Island from the Hunua Ranges south, right through the South Island and on Banks peninsula it is the dominant tree in many places, and Stewart Island.
More photos on my Pinterest page Pseudowintera.