Somebody has been hanging Christmas decorations on the plants along the walkway through Centennial Park in Ōtautahi-Christchurch, NZ. I photographed this one yesterday hung on a harakeke flower.

Thinking more, perhaps it's some clever pollination experiment! I wonder if these decorations make the red harakeke flowers more visible to the local birds (korimako and starlings and silvereyes) that feed from these flowers.

https://flic.kr/p/2rN9Pjj

#Christchurch #Christmas #ChristmasDecoration #Ōtautahi #plant #botany #Phormium #NZflax

Here's another addition to my growing list of "nature doing weird things in 2025".

This is a harakeke, Phormium tenax, one of the NZ flax species. I found it in flower on Friday. It's not supposed to be doing that. I have never seen a harakeke flowering in July before.

The only other observation of a harakeke in flower from Canterbury any time during May–August on #iNaturalist was an observation I made on 18 August 2018.

It's very confused.

https://inaturalist.nz/observations/295637509

#iNaturalistNZ #phenology #BloomScrolling #NZ #Phormium #Flowering #botany #nature

Is there a known thing for #Phormium flaxes to just decide to be half their normal height?

My wharariki has been doing that for the past 2 months and some other people in town have also complained that their special harakeke has done the same.

#gardening