Purple Delight

Jacaranda mimosifolia are grown widely in warm parts of the world. They are beautiful with showy blue or violet flowers and attractive, oppositely paired, compound leaves. This genus includes about 50 species. These are spectacular late spring flowering trees, which create washes of purple through many towns and suburbs each spring. In particular mass plantings of jacarandas along the street create a river of purple as well as a carpet underneath the trees when the flowers begin to fall. Jacarandas are large trees which grow to 30ft tall and up to 30ft wide. My tree was badly damaged by hurricane Andrew in 1992, and is only now beginning to start flowering again. It is so tall now it is very hard to get a good photo of the flowers.