Pukeiti

Family: Ericaceae (Heath)

Life form: Shrub - evergreen

Comments: Habit: Dense, upright growing shrub, 1.9 × 1.0m in 15 years.

Foliage: leaves broadly elliptic to elliptic, 130 × 60-65mm, margins flat, glossy and dark olive green above, scaly (the scales light yellow-green, becoming more sparse with age and giving the young leaves a greyish tinge).

Flowers: 5-7 full, shallow-domed truss, tubular funnel- shaped, 60 × 90mm, with 5 broadly overlapping, wavy-edged lobes, buds brilliant yellow-green. Strong purplish red bracts, opening inside brilliant orange-yellow blending into light
orange-yellow, outside brilliant yellow on the lobes, not scented.

History: R. ‘Gardenia Odyssey’ (s) X laetum. Hybridised by Brian E. Oldham in Auckland in 1993, grown to first flower in 2000 and registered in 2009. Etymology: named after comments about “its brazen brilliance”.