Jacaranda mimosifolia

Jacaranda mimosifolia is a sub-tropical tree native to south-central South America that has been widely planted elsewhere because of its attractive and long-lasting pale indigo flowers. It is also known as jacaranda, blue jacaranda, black poui, or as the fern tree. Older sources call it Jacaranda acutifolia, but it is nowadays more usually classified as Jacaranda mimosifolia. In scientific usage, the name 'jacaranda' refers to the genus Jacaranda, which has many other members, but in horticultural and everyday usage, it nearly always means the blue jacaranda. The blue jacaranda has been cultivated in almost every part of the world where there is no risk of frost; established trees with the protection of hard wood can however tolerate brief spells of temperatures down to around −7 °C (19 °F). In the US, 48 km (30 mi) east of Los Angeles where winter temperatures can dip to −12 °C (10 °F) for short several-hour periods, the mature tree survives with little or no visible damage. Even when young trees are damaged by a hard frost and suffer die back, they will often rebound from the roots and grow in a shrub-like, multi-stemmed form. In the United States, the Jacaranda is grown very extensively in California, in southwestern Arizona, southeast Texas and Florida. In California they are grown most extensively in Southern California, but are commonly planted as far north as the San Francisco Bay Area and along the frost-free coastal regions of Northern California. In California flowering and growth will be stunted if grown directly on the coast, where a lack of heat combined with cool ocean winds discourages flowering. In Europe it is grown on the entire Mediterranean coast of Spain (it is very noticeable in the Valencian community, the Balearic Islands and Andalusia with especially large specimens present in Valencia, Alicante and Seville, and usually with earlier flowering than in the rest of Europe), in the southern part of Portugal (very noticeable in Lisbon), southern Italy (in Naples and Cagliari it's quite easy to come across beautiful specimens), southern Greece (noticeable in Athens) and on the Islands of Malta and Cyprus. It was introduced to Cape Town by Baron von Ludwig in about 1829. It is regarded as an invasive species in parts of South Africa and Australia, the latter of which has had problems with the Blue Jacaranda preventing growth of native species. In other parts of Africa jacarandas are especially present in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, and Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. The tree grows to a height of up to 20 m (66 ft). Its bark is thin and grey-brown in colour, smooth when the tree is young though it eventually becomes finely scaly. The twigs are slender and slightly zigzag; they are a light reddish-brown in colour. The flowers are up to 5 cm (2.0 in) long, and are grouped in 30 cm (12 in) panicles. They appear in spring and early summer, and last for up to two months. They are followed by woody seed pods, about 5 cm (2.0 in) in diameter, which contain numerous flat, winged seeds. The Blue Jacaranda is cultivated even in areas where it rarely blooms, for the sake of its large compound leaves. These are up to 45 cm (18 in) long and bi-pinnately compound, with leaflets little more than 1 cm (0.39 in) long. There is a white form available from nurseries.