#phormium

Plant of the Day

Tuesday 2 December 2025

The variegated leaves, of what is probably Phormium colensoi 'Tricolor' (mountain flax), add a dynamic and abstract touch to the border. This evergreen perennial makes a large clump of sword-shaped striped leaves, edged with red. Plants grow best in fertile, moist but well-drained soil in full sun. In colder areas they may be damaged by low temperatures.

@purrdence​ is in New Zealand for a month, so of course I asked her to photograph every species she sees, or at least those distinctive enough that I think I can ID them. 

The one with the four-meter tall flower spikes and strap-like leaves in the middle distance there, at Sandfly Bay,  is one of the most iconic plants from Aoteoroa, and is variously known as harakeke in Māori; and New Zealand hemp. 

photo by Kahuroa on Wiki, showing a few more details.

Taxonomically, you might find it listed in the Phormiaceae, Asphodelaceae,  Xanthorrhoeaceae, or currently, the Hemerocallidoideae subfamily of the Asphodels. Plant systematics is a headache at the best of times. I’ve posted related species from Australia before, but I’m going to have to check exactly which genera those are first thanks to the revisions - my tags are probably no longer accurate.

As you might have guessed from ‘flax’ and ‘hemp’, it’s a important textile crop to the indigenous peoples of the island, and Europeans found plenty of uses as well after they showed up. Indeed, the hara in the Māori name is a remnant of the Austronesian root *paŋudaN (via Proto-Oceanic *padran) referring to Pandanus plants with similar leaves used for weaving. Pandanus and some other Oceanian textile crops don’t grow well or at all that far south, so the Māori invented all kinds of uses and ways to prepare this one.  Captain Cook wrote in “Of the leaves of these plants, with very little preparation, they (the Māori) make all their common apparel; and of these they make also their strings, lines and cordage.”. Also baskets, mats and fishing nets (up to a kilometer long!) from undressed flax. 

Joseph Jenner Merrett,1846 - Hone Heke, Harriet (Heke's wife), and Kawiti. Harriet (Hariata) is on the left in a European skirt, a Māori cloak worn as a stole around her upper body and tied at the waist, leaning on Heke's shoulder. Heke stands centrally, holding a rifle and wearing a short checked flax and feather cloak and flax skirt. His uncle Kawiti is on the right in a flax cloak, holding a taiaha.

The Māori also used (EDIT: And still use) various parts of the plant for medical purposes, and thickly woven or plaited flax as armour during the Musket Wars and later New Zealand Wars.

Phormium tenax is Native to NZ and Norfolk Island, but is now grown as a ornamental in many parts of the world, and as an ecological problem on St Helena where they ran a textile industry based on the stuff from the late 1800s to 1966. In its home range the flowers are an important food plant for nectar-feeding birds, and as coastal vegetation forms breeding habitat for the Yellow-eyed Penguin.

Purchased a Phormium ‘Jester’ today with beautiful pink striped leaves. It cost £35 which I thought was quite expensive, so when I got it home I immediately divided it into three separate plants which is much more cost effective!

Two of them have been planted between the Ninebark and the apple tree, and the third underneath the large silver birch.