Wandering around the native plant collection at Dunedin Botanic Garden on 09 December 2020, we looked up and were surprised to see the yellow form of southern rata in flower! We had no idea it would be flowering this early in the season. The usual colour you come across is red so it was very special to see this (and not only that, there was a white-flowered rata as well which I’ll put into another post). New Zealand.
Click on any photo to enlarge.
Yellow-flowered form of southern rata
Metrosideros umbellata
The rata was high up so when I took this shot I wasn’t to know I’d captured a couple of bumblebees – welcome bonus!
The flowers are high above Nigel’s head …
Next two photos taken by Nigel …
In spring the field behind Nigel is full of daffodils, lovely area here.
I found an article in the Otago Daily Times (19 Dec 2014) about natives flowering in the festive season and it’s by the curator of the native plant collection. It includes a photo of the yellow-flowered rata and mentions both the yellow and white forms. Here’s a link: Festive flowerings
Text by Liz, photos by Liz and Nigel; Exploring Colour (2020)
Exploring Colour 
I remember the red-flowering rata from Arthur’s Pass. I didn’t know there are yellow and white variants.
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Seeing them this year, the yellow and white rata had pretty much finished their flowering by the time the red ones were out in flower.
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Stunning. Excellent article too.
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Cool! Glad you enjoyed these 🙂
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Wow, another beauty, Liz, and fun on your bonus bees! I love your last image, too, with Nigel in the pic it’s easy to see how tall the tree is.
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Both of us were hugely surprised and excited to find this big beauty putting on such a show!
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A nice feathery effect, a bit like an up-sized cleome, that’s the only flower I can think of, that grows around here, that resembles this. A very pretty tree!
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Thanks Robert, rata and their close relative pohutukawa are wonderful flowerers!
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The flowers are so delicate and pretty – and it’s impressive to see a whole tree-full of them. Bet the bees were having a great time! 🙂
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We had no idea there was such a big tree of yellow rata at the gardens .. it was exciting to find it!
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