Love these gorgeous orange ‘strawberry’ fruit on Arbutus canariensis in Dunedin Botanic Garden, beside a path in the rock garden. We were there on 07 May 2022, autumn here in New Zealand. The tree itself is very pretty with nice foliage and a lovely pale tree trunk. I found an article about the botanic garden specimens in a 2010 article of the Otago Daily Times.
Click on any photo to enlarge.
The fruit have an interesting textured surface.
Pretty fruit, foliage, and pale tree trunk.
Looked up to see bright fruit showcased against a moody sky 🙂
Nigel took this lovely context photo, the tree is right by the path.
It’s like patchy coloured pencil ‘colouring in’ on the trunk .. love it!
Text by Liz, photos by Liz and Nigel; Exploring Colour (2022)
Exploring Colour 
Arbutus is a great tree for bees. Not just for nectar and pollen though…Kew gardens did a study that showed that the tree produces a compound that helps bumblebees fight parasites. I should have one in my garden, hehe!
LikeLiked by 2 people
The tree’s very pretty, but I never come across ‘Arbutus’ without remembering a favorite comic strip from my childhood and youth. One of its characters was a small boy who was the grandson of housekeeper Alicia Contreras de Ortiz, better-known as Tehuana Mama;the boy, who always was following Alicia around, was named Trailing Arbutus. If you’re interested, there’s a short piece about the strip here.
LikeLiked by 2 people