Image: Su Leslie 2021
“Aspirin is so good for roses, brandy for sweet peas, and a squeeze of lemon-juice for the fleshy flowers, like begonias.” — Gerald Durrell
Friday Flowers
#fridayflowers
Make mine a sweet pea
#fridayflowers
Friday flowers
At the Auckland Wintergardens
First brush of summer
Pohutukawa (Metrosideros excelsa) — often called New Zealand’s Christmas tree — produces masses of red flowers from almost white buds throughout summer. Today, the pohutukawa in my neighbourhood are mostly showing white buds. By this time next week, the trees will be thickly painted in feathery strokes of red.
Friday flowers
Friday flowers
Friday flowers
Friday Flowers
Image: Su Leslie 2020
Image: Su Leslie 2020
Rain and strong winds are taking their toll on the camellia today.
Friday flowers
The first blossom. Image: Su Leslie 2020
One of the streets in my neighbourhood is lined with Taiwanese cherry trees (Prunus campanulata). I’d heard they were in blossom and decided to check it out on my morning walk.
Image: Su Leslie 2020
I was expecting the explosion of pink that confronted me, but was totally unprepared for the number of tui feasting on the flowers’ nectar.
Tui in a cherry tree. Image; Su Leslie 2020
I’d love to show you what I mean, but was unable to get a shot that really does justice to the masses of these noisy, mischievous birds going crazily feeding.
I’ll try again with a different lens, but in the meantime we can just enjoy the flowers.
Image: Su Leslie 2020
Su Leslie 2020
Friday Flowers
Image: Su Leslie 2020
The season of the kowhai
Spring. Tui feasting on kowhai flower nectar. Image; Su Leslie 2019
Amongst all the flowers that burst forth in Spring, the one that speaks most clearly of the season in Aotearoa New Zealand is the kowhai.
Image: Su Leslie
Kowhai (eight species of tree within the genus Sophora) are native to this country. Unlike many NZ natives, kowhai are semi-deciduous, making their spring-time transformation even more spectacular. Unusually too, kowhai flowers appear before the new leaves.
Kowhai flowers. Image: Su Leslie
Kowhai is the Maori word for yellow, and the plant has great significance; practically and culturally. Infusions of kowhai bark were used in traditional Maori medicine to treat a huge range of ailments from dandruff to knitting together broken bones. It was even given as a (fairly dramatic) cure for constipation.
Kowhai flowers. Image: Su Leslie
These days, the medicinal use of Kowhai is not recommended, as it’s known that the plant contains cytsine, an alkeloid common in several species within the legume family. It is similar to nicotine and, in humans, can cause headaches, breathing difficulties and in large doses — death.
Other animals are clearly not affected; kowhai flower nectar is a favourite food of the native Korimako, Kaka and Tui. One of the great springtime pleasures is watching and listening to Tui in a kowhai tree.
Tui in a kowhai tree. Image: Su Leslie 2019
Tui in a kowhai tree. Image: Su Leslie 2019
If you’d like to know what Tui’s sound like, this video‘s good and has footage of Kereru (wood pigeon) and Tauhou (wax-eye)
Lens-Artists Photo Challenge | Spring
Friday Flowers
