Christmas came a little late this (last) year! 😉
Normally the NZCT at the top of my drive will have just a few flowers in early December, getting into the Christmas Spirit and dressing up in a bit of Green and Red, and will peak around about Christmas day or earlier then become dormant and just have green or variegated yellow/green leaves for the rest of the year.
By now it should have dropped all it’s little red spindles of flowers (that have a yellow tip of pollen at the extreme ends) but they only really started opening up in January. Coming from New Zealand i think they prefer places where they get some decent rainfall?
As can bee seen in the second photo the bees are more than happy to have some flowers to visit, even if they are a little late. 🙂
(Click on a pic to open in a new window and click again to see enlarged detail!) 🙂
Two Bee, or not two bee? Two Bee is the answer! What was the Question again? 🙂
link to:
Cee’s Flower of the Day – January 21, 2019 – Bearded Iris
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love.
What flowers are these?
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Hi Hal!
AS the blog title suggests, they are the flowers of the New Zealand Christmas Tree (common name) or Metrosideros excelsa. 🙂
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Different and striking … thanks … oversight on my part
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They are amazing flowers! The tree is a member of the myrtle family of plants and here in Australasia there are quite a few similar varieties of plants with flowers such as these in colours from white and cream to red and purple.
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Look forward to the pictures.
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Very pretty, and unusual, at least to me. I like that they have the little bit of pollen on the tips. Nice that you got the bees in the photo, too.
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