Ngaio (tree)

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Ngaio

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Plantae
Division:	Magnoliophyta
Class:	Magnoliopsida
Order:	Lamiales
Family:	Myoporaceae
Genus:	Myoporum
Species:	M. laetum

Binomial name

Myoporum laetum
G. Forst.

The Ngaio or Mousehole tree (Myoporum laetum) is a tree in the family Myoporaceae native to New Zealand.

It is evergreen, grows to a height of 50-70 feet, and bears white or near white blossoms in late winter to mid spring.

According to Maori legend, a Ngaio tree can be seen on the moon:

The man in the moon becomes, in Maori legend, a woman, one Rona by name. This lady, it seems, once had occasion to go by night for water to a stream. In her hand she carried an empty calabash. Stumbling in the dark over stones and the roots of trees she hurt her shoeless feet and began to abuse the moon, then hidden behind clouds, hurling at it some such epithet as "You old tattooed face, there!" But the moon-goddess heard, and reaching down caught up the insulting Rona, calabash and all, into the sky. In vain the frightened woman clutched, as she rose, the tops of a ngaio-tree. The roots gave way, and Rona with her calabash and her tree are placed in the front of the moon for ever, an awful warning to all who are tempted to mock at divinities in their haste.

From : The Long White Cloud by William Pember Reeves (1899) [1]

Myoporum laetum is considered an invasive exotic species by the California Exotic Pest Plant Council. http://www.cal-ipc.org/ip/