Species
+

Metrosideros collina (Forst.) A.Gray

Ohia Samoa, feùa, heùa, tutupu puarätä gätä, puagätä

Climate known 64 photographs
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Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Metrosideros collina is a species of flowering plant in the family Myrtaceae. It is a tree or shrub native to French Polynesia, the Cook Islands, and the Pitcairn Islands.

Text from Wikipedia, “Metrosideros collina”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Metrosideros

Metrosideros is a genus of approximately 60 trees, shrubs, and vines in the family Myrtaceae, mostly found in the Pacific region. Most of the tree forms are small, but some are exceptionally large, the New Zealand species in particular. The name derives from the Ancient Greek metra or "heartwood" and sideron or "iron". More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Metrosideros”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Myrtaceae
Described by
(Forst.) A.Gray
Native to
Cook Is., Marquesas, Pitcairn Is. +3
Wild records
315 in range· 262 open

At a glance

Warmest month
27°C
Mar, mean day; nights 25 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
2950mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Dec 420 mm (CHELSA)
Light
27–42DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: a sharp rainy season, November to May at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (2.0 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred. Habitat rain 2950 mm a year, wettest December at 420 mm, driest August at 147 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 27 to 42 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 21.8 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Leptospermum collinum J.R.Forst. & G.Forst.; Melaleuca villosa L.fil.; Metrosideros acuminata Decne.; Metrosideros collina var. feani F.Br.; Metrosideros collina var. fruticosa J.W.Moore and 17 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a sharp rainy season, November to May at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (2.0 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred.

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a sharp season: 70% of the year's rain (2088 mm of 2950 mm) falls in November to May. The temperature curve is flat, 2.0 °C between the warmest and coldest month, so the growing-season rule does not infer a growing season from it. Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; with a flat temperature curve there is no season to reverse, so they are not shifted for a collection elsewhere.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 2950 mm a year, wettest December at 420 mm, driest August at 147 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

2950 mm a year at the habitat, 2088 mm of it November to May. Wettest month December at 420 mm, driest August at 147 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1894 mm to 3853 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 27 to 42 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 27 to 42 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 22, the highest 90th-percentile month 45).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor 21.8 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is 21.8 °C, the absolute minimum 20.3 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 28.2 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 23.3 °C in August (across the envelope cells 20.4 °C to 24.5 °C), warmest day 26.6 °C in March (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 21.8 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 63 to 68% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 24 °C in Aug to 27 °C in Mar; mean night from 23 °C in Aug to 25 °C in Mar. The cold quarter, Jul to Sep, is the three months around the coldest night. 2950 mm of rain a year, most in Dec. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 88 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 20.3 °C and the 99th-percentile day 28.2 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.15°20°25°30°28.2° 99th-percentile day (undated)20.3° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500600mm rainDLI 27–42RH 63–68 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 88 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C26 / 24–2726 / 24–2727 / 25–2826 / 24–2826 / 24–2725 / 23–2625 / 22–2624 / 22–2625 / 22–2625 / 22–2625 / 23–2726 / 24–27
Night °C25 / 23–2625 / 23–2625 / 23–2625 / 23–2625 / 22–2624 / 22–2524 / 21–2523 / 20–2523 / 21–2524 / 21–2524 / 22–2524 / 22–25
Rain mm362 / 205–490298 / 184–399294 / 214–389247 / 169–317217 / 158–283194 / 135–250163 / 112–203147 / 105–185156 / 97–222202 / 123–310250 / 120–352420 / 123–560
DLI40 / 37–4440 / 37–4438 / 36–4134 / 30–3829 / 24–3527 / 22–3328 / 23–3433 / 27–3738 / 33–4241 / 38–4542 / 40–4539 / 36–45
RH %68 / 63–7468 / 63–7467 / 63–7467 / 62–7465 / 61–7364 / 60–7164 / 60–7163 / 60–7165 / 60–7166 / 61–7267 / 62–7367 / 63–74

Each figure is the median across the 88 grid cells holding the 305 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 2151:613 (-17.575, -149.325). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 20.3 °C, 1st-percentile night 21.8 °C, 99th-percentile day 28.2 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 88 distinct grid cells holding the 305 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2151:613 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -17.50_-149.375, lapse-corrected +97 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 160 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeCook Is., Marquesas, Pitcairn Is., Society Is., Tuamotu, Tubuai Is.
Kew's description“shrub or tree” · “wet tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker-17.556, -149.585 · in the densest population, 196 records (62% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 315 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 262 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 2 km away. 112 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 10 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 315 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Metrosideros collinaMetrosideros collinaMetrosideros collinaMetrosideros collinaMetrosideros collinaMetrosideros collinaMetrosideros collinaMetrosideros collina

Photographs: no rights reserved · CC0 (2); (c) Lisa Bennett, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Jon Sullivan, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) Samuel Brown, some rights reserved (CC BY).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Metrosideros collina, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Progressive island colonization and ancient origin of Hawaiian Metrosideros (Myrtaceae)
Diana M. Percy, Adam M Garver, Warren L. Wagner, Helen F. James (2008) · Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
Foraging Ecology of the Hawaiian Crow, an Endangered Generalist
Howard F. Sakai, C. John Ralph, Cheryl Jenkins (1986) · Ornithological Applications
Stand Analysis of an Invading Firetree (Myrica faya Aiton) Population, Hawaii
Garrett A. Smathers, Donald E. Gardner (1979) · ScholarSpace (University of Hawaii at Manoa)
Floral development in the Metrosideros group (Myrtaceae) with special emphasis on the androecium
David A. Orlovich, Andrew N. Drinnan, Pauline Y. Ladiges (1996) · Telopea
Interactions between Hawaiian honeycreepers and Metrosideros collina on the Island of Hawaii
F. Lynn Carpenter, Richard E. MacMillen (1973) · ScholarSpace (University of Hawaii at Manoa)
Fungus Communities Associated with Leaf Surfaces of Endemic Vascular Plants in Hawaii
Gladys E. Baker, Paul H. Dunn, William S. Sakai (1979) · Mycologia
PHYTOSOCIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY OF THE NATURAL DRY-GRASS COMMUNITIES ON OAHU, HAWAII
Kuswata Kartawinata, Dieter Mueller Dombois (1972) · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals)
Gibberellins and bud break, vegetative shoot growth and flowering in Metrosideros collina cv. Tahiti
John D. Clemens, Paula E. Jameson, P. Bannister, Richard P. Pharis (1995) · Plant Growth Regulation

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Metrosideros 2 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 31 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.