Earlier this year I noticed one of the bushes in the backyard was sending off a bunch of flowers, more than I’ve ever seen on this one bush for sure, and now they’ve fulled developed into seed pods. These were impressive even when they were pre-bloom, they’re probably 8 feet tall and there are something like 10 flowers per stalk over seven stalks that the plant produced this year.
I thought these were super fascinating so I grabbed a few pictures. Turns out these are a variety of Phormium, or New Zealand flax, with bright pink stripes along the side of the broad leaves.
Seeds from New Zealand flax bush
Putting on my very unofficial botanist hat, the pods most likely open up and let their seeds out when they’re still quite high above the ground. The seeds, inside their disk-shaped hulls, then catch the wind, spreading farther than they would if they just dropped directly down.