Jacaranda

The Jacaranda trees are in full bloom in Brisbane right now. It is Spring here and the city is bursting in purple blooms in tree-lined streets and dottings in and around the city. It is a magical time of year and the quintessential image of Brisbane. Adding to that magic is a lovely purple blanket of fallen blossoms. Traditionally signalling the beginning of the exam season, it is said that if you haven’t started studying by the time the trees are bursting then you are doomed.

The Brisbane City Botanic Gardens is the site of Australia’s first grown Jacaranda tree and was depicted in the 1903 painting by Richard Godfrey Rivers titled “Under the Jacaranda Tree”. The painting is of the artist and his wife Selina taking tea under the tree. That tree was a Brisbane landmark until it was knocked over by a cyclone in 1980.

I am grateful to Walter Hill  who planted the first tree here in 1864. He was at the time the superintendent of Brisbane’s Botanic Gardens and obtained the Jacaranda seed from Brazil via the Australian wheat ships that traded with South America. It has brought so much beauty to our city.

Here’s a poem I wrote a few years back:

Jacaranda

September blooms of purple hues,
adorn the city street.
And in bright splendour praises Spring,
where limbs and feathers meet.

Amid soft purple hues I lay,
to rest my weary head.
In fantasies drifting away,
upon a sprinkled spread.

Copyright © October 2011 Norma Martiri

Under the Jacaranda Tree by Richard Godfrey Rivers 1903

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