Monday, May 12, 2008 – Jacaranda Blues

Out here from mid-May through late June we have what's called the June Gloom – dark clouds slide slowly by low overhead all day, rolling in off the cold Pacific. Everything is quiet, and this world is dimmed. The sun may break through, fitfully, in the late afternoon, for an hour, on a good day.  It’s day after day of film noir dismal. But it's also Jacaranda Time – blue trees in bloom all across Los Angeles. That helps.

See the Los Angeles Times, Monday, May 12, 2008 - Jacaranda Trees Are a Beautiful Mess 

The trees bloom for two months twice a year, once around April to May and again around November to December.  Although there are 49 species of the tree, the Jacaranda mimosifolia is the most popular locally because it thrives in sunny, tropically tinged weather with little rain, said David Lofgren, a horticulturist with the Los Angeles County Arboretum in Arcadia. He said Southern California's variety - nicknamed blue jacarandas - are actually slightly less blue than those in the trees' native Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil.  Trees grown from seeds first imported to California had a violet tint that has been widely propagated in the region over the decades, Lofgren said.

It's that distinctive color atop the trees, which can reach 60 feet high, that charms onlookers. "Blue is a very difficult color to achieve in botany," he said. "They don't serve more than for the purpose of eye candy, but we as humans are inherently drawn to color. Why is it that we pay more for a color TV than for one that's black and white?"

The trees are just fine. They improve the neighborhood – Matisse meets Raymond Chandler.

"The trees infamously shed their flowers, frequently sprinkling down into manicured gardens and onto sidewalks, frustrating property owners and gardeners. It's a great tree, goes the line, in a neighbor's yard."

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Technical Note:

Photographs after March 3, 2008, were taken with a Nikon D200 – or a Nikon D70 when noted. All previous photographs were taken with the D70. The lenses used are (1) AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:35-4.5G ED, or (2) AF Nikkor 70-300 mm telephoto, or (3) AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 55-200 mm f/4-5.6G ED. Photography here is modified for web posting using Adobe Photoshop 7.0.  The earliest photography in the archives was done with a Sony Mavica digital still camera (MVC-FD-88) with built-in digital zoom.

All text and photos, unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 - Alan M. Pavlik