“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.“
~ Alice Walker, The Color Purple
I wrote this near the end of last year’s Jacaranda season. I’m thinking I’ll update it every year now that I see the Jacarandas everywhere and now that they know I’m watching.
“The next will be my fortieth California June. The Jacarandas blooming still sneak up on me.”
This year I learned that my newish hometown of Glendale adopted the Jacaranda as its official city tree in 1972. “I knew it!” I thought when I discovered that bit of info. Glendale’s city buses (the Bee Line) are purple!
Turns out Glendale is ripe with Jacarandas:
Of course, I set a Google alert.
Now I also see Jacarandas in Pretoria and Sydney. But there’s nothing like turning the corner of a normal city street and finding the next bursting in purple.
A lovely artist at the Montrose farmers market described this year’s bloom as among the most vibrant she’s ever seen, and she’s “seen plenty,” she joked. She showed me the seed pods she paints in watercolors at holiday time.
I had no idea the trees along Honolulu in Montrose are Jacarandas!
At night the trees are lit with tiny lights; at dusk they light up the purple trees with their magic.
See?
A Jacaranda tree stands tall, and sways as if to say,
Look! At this magnificence, I’m wearing blue today.
forgive the way I shout aloud, my lack of modesty,
but nowhere in this troubled world is finery like me.
Light rays slide between each leaf, to settle on the tips
to lightly kiss your face with a hundred million tiny lips.
You only have to lift your eyes to greet the filtered sun
a sight I guarantee will warm the heart of everyone.
Though very tall, my leaf is small, its form is one of fern,
large panicles of bluebells swell to trumpet unconcern.
A Bee collecting nectar from an ample deep white throat,
takes flight to join its family, and of its feast to gloat.
Look up to see each fern like leaf, floating up on high,
like footprints of a centipede that stroll across the sky
See how far my branches reach, admire their greenery,
so beautiful and strong, I am the Jacaranda tree.
~ Ann Beard
Here’s some recent and local Jacaranda news:
It’s jacaranda season: When purple reigns
Seen from elevated freeways, puffy clouds of purple appear to hover over neighborhoods. The bloom sometimes begins in March but can usually be depended on from April through June. The trees’ color is especially vibrant against Southern California’s May gray skies.
The Best Places in Southern California to See Jacaranda Trees in Bloom
Jacarandas, while not directly related in the floral world, are the lavender cousins of the spring season and can be seen in several Los Angeles area neighborhoods.
Not sure there’s anything new on this list but, oh my, the pictures!
Purple Jacaranda Trees Are the New Cherry Blossom, I’m Calling It
Purple is just so much better than pink, don’t you think?
The first week of June has arrived, and the purple and blue trumpet-shaped flowers have begun to burst with their summertime colors from Pasadena to Santa Ana, Beverly Hills, and Long Beach. Like cherry blossoms, jacaranda trees can be just a bit messy—their flowers often fall to the ground and cover the sidewalks and streets below, just like the classic pink bloom of cherry trees.
The vivid blue shade is a rarity in the plant world. Less than ten percent of the 280,000 species of flowering plants produce blue flowers. As abundant as they are in the southland, jacaranda trees are rare in the rest of the United States. So this jacaranda season, take a moment to appreciate the glory that is the jacaranda.
Jacaranda trees: Invasion of the purple flowers bring peace, beauty (and some mess) to SoCal
Like many of their human counterparts, they are transplants to Los Angeles, trying to make it in a town of newcomers.
For two weeks in late spring, they burst forth in their fancy best, shedding their leaves to make way for a dazzling display of unimpeded purple haze.
There are 49 species of the Jacaranda tree, but the most popular one in our area is the Jacaranda mimosifolia, because it thrives in sunny weather with little rain.
Bottom right – wow!
And this incredible exercise in good data journalism:
Prodigiously purple: Here’s the location of all 6,799 jacaranda trees in Long Beach
A prodigiously purple portrait has emerged, thanks to a series of records requests by Los Angeles Times journalist Matt Stiles, seeking information about the types and locations of all the trees planted along streets across Los Angeles County.
Stiles and the Times created a growing database of individual trees, 1.75 million so far, and made the list publicly available. Of the 140,000 trees in Long Beach planted in a municipal right of way, 6,799 are jacarandas.
