May flowers
Early summer is here in Phoenix, and the trees and cacti are doing their best to put bright colors into the landscape. There is a tree with blooms like a purple wisteria (it’s not, but I don’t know what it is), and another one with amazing purple-and-white blossoms that look like orchids. Mulberry trees grow here, which I find amazing; I thought they needed more humidity.
[Editor's note: the wisteria-look alike is a jacaranda, and the tree with the blue-purple orchid-like blooms is a desert willow. Thanks to alert readers for helping me out!]
Having learned to distinguish an agave (native) from an aloe (not native to the desert, but have adapted well from their Mediterranean climate), I’m caught up in the flowers. The agave sends up a post of bright yellow flowers before it dies. The aloe blooms year after year, once it reaches maturity. My favorites are the on
the thin-leaved aloes, with long, waving stalks of coral flowers that look like bells. They develop a small, deeply lobed green and purplish-red fruit that grows on the stalk, attached on a short stem.
I’m keeping notes; in a year it will all be commonplace.
–Quinn McDonald is a writer and certified creativity coach who believes that nature has lessons for us, if we’d only get out and notice. Quinn develops and runs workshops on creativity, communicating simply and effectively, and journal-writing. Image: from Quinn’s visual journal. (c) QuinnCreative.com 2008. All rights reserved.
The first tree you are describing is a Jacaranda tree. The other tree you are describing is a Hong Kong Orchid Tree. Both are very beautiful flowering trees. I certainly hope you are enjoying the weather……it’s about to get very HOT! I’ve been in Arizona since 1995, moving from NY/Connecticut. Love the blog, by the way. Looking forward to Art Unraveled in August. =) Melissa
—thanks, Melissa. You are right, the first one was a Jacaranda tree. I looked it up and you are absolutely right. I think I gave a poor description of the other one, I’ll take a picture. It has purple and white blossoms, more bell-like than orchid like. It might be a purple-orchid tree, but I need to do more research. I’m amazed that you got it from my offhand description. Excellent! –Q
Melissa
May 6, 2008
We have two types of aloe at home in cold, wet Switzerland. One is an aloe vera, the real thing, a lovely, large pale green plant in its own pot. It is about 10 years old, still growing, and has never flowered.
The other is also an aloe, but not vera, smaller, darker, but otherwise similar. They (not it) grow like weeds and produce multiple new stalks, so our oldest has so filled a pot that it threatens to take over our small apartment. We have taken some of these sprouts and put them into new pots, where they are thriving and will surely take over once again. Such rich growth, but still no flowers.
Maybe they don’t know they need to grow up.
—–I think they mature at about 20 years. I had a dracaena that bloomed for the first time at age 30. I didn’t even know they bloomed. There are tons of aloe varieties, so who knows when yours will bloom. Could be the colder environment, too. -Q
Phaedrus
May 29, 2008
Reminds me of the type of illustrative work Darwin used in his journals. I did one little throw away tongue in cheek painting called” Scientific Notes”, a Hollywood Squares configuration of unrelated low science 101 events. This makes me want to resurrect it with a little more flair and care. I wouldn’t know an agave bulb from garlic except one is better in buttery bread with pasta.
–I didn’t know any of these things, either. It’s a way I familiarize myself with a place. I also believe that nature has a lot to teach us, and I love visual journaling. The result is my current fascination with seed pods. -Q
Jim Jolly
May 29, 2008