Blue Pollen! Kōtukutuku colours up

Our tree fuchsias (Fuchsia excorticata, Maori - Kōtukutuku) have just been in flower and it's another phase in their most unusual life. NZ tree fuchsia are not your well-behaved tub plant - I've seen them 12 metres high and nearly a metre diameter. They definitely show better in the south tho' with our harder, colder...

Highway natives – twiggy tree daisies

Travelling south today through the Cromwell Gorge, near Champagne Creek (map link) Liz said that's an Olearia lineata back there! So we screeched to stop and walked back - there were quite a cluster of these now rare twiggy tree daisies (Asteraceae). They have the divaricating forked branching habit common to many NZ plant families, bluish-green leaves,...