Western Australian Christmas Tree

Appearance

The habit of the species may be a tree, up to 10 metres high, or as a lower shrub form. The rough bark is grey-brown. Flowers are a vivid yellow-orange, appearing sometime between October and January. The inflorescence on each flowering stem may be up to one metre in length.

It is a root hemiparasite, is photosynthetic and mainly obtains water and mineral nutrients from its hosts. The haustoria arising from the roots of "Nuytsia" attach themselves to roots of many nearby plants and draw water and therefore nutrients from them. Almost all species are susceptible to attack; haustoria have even been found attached to underground cables. In natural settings "Nuytsia" withdraws relatively little from each individual host, but is attached to so many other plants that the benefit to this hemiparasitic tree is likely to be considerable.
Roots and rhizomes extend out and may sucker to form new branches that give the appearance of a grove of trees. A network of fine and fragile roots arise from these larger underground parts, forming haustoria where they meet the roots of other species. These roots or rhizomes can be up to 150 meters in length; the most extensive of any known plant.{{ cite journal | last= Calladine | first= Ainsley | date= 2000 | title= Haustorial Development and Growth Benefit...etc | journal= Annals of Botany | volume= 85 | issue= | pages= 733–740 | doi= 10.1006/anbo.2000.1129 | doi-access= free }}

The width is up to 1.2 metres in diameter, composed of multiple layers of wood and bark that allow the tree to withstand fire. An unusual characteristic of the seedlings is the four to six cotyledons rather than two.

Distribution

"Nuytsia floribunda" is well known in Southwest Australia, especially due to the appearance of abundant flowers in summer, which is a spectacular display. Although "Nuytsia" seeds germinate readily and seedlings are easy to grow for a year or two, cultivation of the species to maturity is regarded as difficult, with little success outside its native habitat. It appears on a variety of soil types throughout Southwest Australia, the distribution of the species extends to the east of the Esperance Plain and to the north on the Geraldton Sandplains.

The species was once common across the Swan Coastal Plain, now mostly cleared around Perth with changes in land use since colonisation.

Uses

The Nyungar people made use of the species during the season Kambarang, around October to early December, obtaining bark to make shields. The gum that exudes from the wound can be collected later, it is sweet and eaten raw. Flowers from the moodjar tree are traditionally used to make a sweet mead-like beverage during birak. Moodjar is regarded as a protected tree by the Nyungar peoples of Southwest Australia, the species is noted as being incorporated into rituals and having a conservation status that forbids their destruction. The plant is venerated by some who learn that it should not be sat beneath or its flowers, leaves or branches touched or taken. The sugary gum is consumed in modest quantities, and children are warned of overindulgence with the story of a monstrous, invulnerable and inescapable nocturnal being whose cry of 'Nhervalong' could be heard as it collects the gum on which it subsists. Seasonal use by other groups of the roots is also known, Ethel Hassell at Jerramungup was invited to taste some being harvested by a group of women, reporting the taste of the flesh beneath an easily removed skin as sweet, brittle and somewhat watery.

The wood of the tree was noted as commercially useless, and that cultivation and transplanting difficult or impractical for gardens or landscaping by the state's conservator Charles Lane Poole, deeming the showy display of flowers to be its only desirable quality. Poole also notes the 'gum' that is exuded from the tree may be useful.
The artist Marianne North featured the tree in an illustration titled 'Study of the West Australian Flame-tree or Fire-tree’, now held at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and recorded her effusive impressions, "I shall never forget one plain we came to, entirely surrounded by the nuytsia or mistletoe trees, in a full blaze of bloom. It looked like a bush-fire without smoke. The trees are, many of them, as big as average oaks in our hedgerows at home, …" The early settler George Fletcher Moore described this parasitic tree as another "anomaly in this land of contradictions".

A journal of systematic botany, "Nuytsia", published by the Western Australian Herbarium, is named for this tree.

The "Annals of Natural History" reported a specimen being grown at a government garden in 1841, and the attempt to raise the few seeds it produced; the correspondence is printed as from "H. Bidwell … of Sidney [sic]".