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.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/today-in-history/how-the-jacarandas-purple-haze-found-its-way-into-our-hearts-all-the-way-from-south-america/news-story/534649947758b92061ebf6bf651c64f5
IT is a popular urban myth that, years ago, a hospital on the North Shore gave jacaranda seedlings to new mothers. According to the legend they were encouraged to plant the seedling and watch it grow along with their child. Consequently, hundreds of the trees bloom in Sydney’s north at this time of the year.
The Portuguese collected specimens in the 18th century and noted British collector Alan Cunningham, who would later become an NSW government botanist, sent samples from South America to England in 1818. Other parts of the world also introduced the trees, notably South Africa, where the first was planted in the 1820s. They were so abundant in Pretoria it was later dubbed the Jacaranda City.
The first samples in Australia are believed to have arrived in the 1850s. The first to be successfully grown was planted by the superintendent of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, Walter Hill, in the 1860s. In an 1870 report to the Queensland Legislative Council, he said he was having some success growing them “on either side of the gravel path leading from the George St Entrance to the interacting gravel walk”.
Perhaps the most famous of his plantings were captured by artist Godfrey Rivers in his 1903 painting Under The Jacaranda, which hangs in the Queensland Art Gallery. The iconic tree was blown down by a cyclone in 1980.
Sydney’s first jacaranda was planted in the Royal Botanic Garden in the late 1850s or early 1860s. Many amateur gardeners tried to grow them at home but most failed because the tree grows best from fresh seed and Australia was a long way from South America.
In 1868 Michael Guilfoyle, horticulturalists and owner of Guilfoyle’s Exotic Nursery at Double Bay, worked out a complicated method of growing the tree from cuttings.
He soon began supplying the private gardens around Sydney.
The popularity of the plant began to soar in Queensland and NSW and during the late 19th and early 20th century some councils gave away seedlings as part of beautification schemes.
Grafton’s association with jacarandas began in 1879 when the council planned to beautify the streets with tree-lined boulevards. Local seed merchant and nurseryman Henry Volkers was contracted to supply different varieties of trees, some of which were jacarandas.
The trees became a local favorite and in the second phase of tree planting after 1900 Volkers was directed to plant only jacarandas. By the 1920s visitors were coming to see street after street lined with the purple flowering trees. In 1935 the council dedicated a yearly festival to celebrate that spectacle.
One of Sydney’s great landmarks is the Sydney University jacaranda tree, which looms over the main quadrangle.
The first jacaranda on the site was planted in 1927 by German professor Eben Gowrie Waterhouse. Waterhouse was a noted expert on camellias but he thought the university could do with an attractive flowering tree to dress up the courtyard. It was uprooted several times by prankster students before a student association condemned the vandalism.
Students long had a superstition that if you hadn’t started studying by the time the tree blooms you would fail the exams. A similar superstition is held by Brisbane students, who say if a jacaranda flower falls on your head you will fail the exams, but the curse can be removed if you catch a flower in your right hand.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/today-in-history/how-the-jacarandas-purple-haze-found-its-way-into-our-hearts-all-the-way-from-south-america/news-story/534649947758b92061ebf6bf651c64f5
IT is a popular urban myth that, years ago, a hospital on the North Shore gave jacaranda seedlings to new mothers. According to the legend they were encouraged to plant the seedling and watch it grow along with their child. Consequently, hundreds of the trees bloom in Sydney’s north at this time of the year.
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Under The Jacaranda by Godfrey R. Rivers in 1903.
Under The Jacaranda by Godfrey R. Rivers in 1903.
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The Portuguese collected specimens in the 18th century and noted British collector Alan Cunningham, who would later become an NSW government botanist, sent samples from South America to England in 1818. Other parts of the world also introduced the trees, notably South Africa, where the first was planted in the 1820s. They were so abundant in Pretoria it was later dubbed the Jacaranda City.
The first samples in Australia are believed to have arrived in the 1850s. The first to be successfully grown was planted by the superintendent of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, Walter Hill, in the 1860s. In an 1870 report to the Queensland Legislative Council, he said he was having some success growing them “on either side of the gravel path leading from the George St Entrance to the interacting gravel walk”.
Perhaps the most famous of his plantings were captured by artist Godfrey Rivers in his 1903 painting Under The Jacaranda, which hangs in the Queensland Art Gallery. The iconic tree was blown down by a cyclone in 1980.
Sydney’s first jacaranda was planted in the Royal Botanic Garden in the late 1850s or early 1860s. Many amateur gardeners tried to grow them at home but most failed because the tree grows best from fresh seed and Australia was a long way from South America.
In 1868 Michael Guilfoyle, horticulturalists and owner of Guilfoyle’s Exotic Nursery at Double Bay, worked out a complicated method of growing the tree from cuttings.
He soon began supplying the private gardens around Sydney.
The popularity of the plant began to soar in Queensland and NSW and during the late 19th and early 20th century some councils gave away seedlings as part of beautification schemes.
Grafton’s association with jacarandas began in 1879 when the council planned to beautify the streets with tree-lined boulevards. Local seed merchant and nurseryman Henry Volkers was contracted to supply different varieties of trees, some of which were jacarandas.
The trees became a local favorite and in the second phase of tree planting after 1900 Volkers was directed to plant only jacarandas. By the 1920s visitors were coming to see street after street lined with the purple flowering trees. In 1935 the council dedicated a yearly festival to celebrate that spectacle.
One of Sydney’s great landmarks is the Sydney University jacaranda tree, which looms over the main quadrangle.
The first jacaranda on the site was planted in 1927 by German professor Eben Gowrie Waterhouse. Waterhouse was a noted expert on camellias but he thought the university could do with an attractive flowering tree to dress up the courtyard. It was uprooted several times by prankster students before a student association condemned the vandalism.
Students long had a superstition that if you hadn’t started studying by the time the tree blooms you would fail the exams. A similar superstition is held by Brisbane students, who say if a jacaranda flower falls on your head you will fail the exams, but the curse can be removed if you catch a flower in your right hand.
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