Blue Jacaranda

''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 violet-colored flowers. It is also known as the jacaranda, blue jacaranda, black poui, Nupur or fern tree. Older sources call it ''J. acutifolia'', but it is nowadays more usually classified as ''J. 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.

In its native range in the wild, ''J. mimosifolia'' is listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN.

Description

The tree grows to a height of up to . Its bark is thin and grey-brown, smooth when the tree is young but eventually becoming finely scaly. The twigs are slender and slightly zigzag; they are a light reddish-brown. The flowers are up to long, and are grouped in panicles. They appear in spring and early summer, and last for up to two months. They are followed by woody seed pods, about in diameter, which contain numerous flat, winged seeds. The blue jacaranda is cultivated for the sake of its large compound leaves, even in areas where it rarely blooms. The leaves are up to long and bi-pinnately compound, with leaflets little more than long. There is a white form available from nurseries.

The unusually shaped, tough pods, which are across, are often gathered, cleaned and used to decorate Christmas trees and dried arrangements.

File:Jacaranda mimosifolia fruits (opened and closed) 3.jpeg, ''J. mimosifolia'' fruits
File:Jacaranda Seed Pod.jpg, A jacaranda seed pod
File:Early jacaranda sprout with second round of leaf growth (cropped).jpg, Early jacaranda sprout
Image:Jacaranda1212.jpg, Tree in flower in Whakatāne, New Zealand
Image:Jacaranda bhutan.jpg, Jacaranda trees in Bhutan

Wood

The wood is pale grey to whitish, straight-grained, relatively soft and knot-free. It dries without difficulty and is often used in its green or wet state for turnery and bowl carving.

Habitat and range

''Jacaranda mimosifolia'' is native to northwestern Argentina (Salta, Jujuy, and Catamarca provinces) and southern Bolivia. It is found in the Dry Chaco and flooded savannas, and in the Southern Andean Yungas of the eastern Andean piedmont and inter-Andean valleys, up to 2600 meters elevation. In its native range the tree is threatened by uncontrolled logging and clearing of land for agriculture, and is assessed as Vulnerable in the IUCN Red List.

Taxonomy

The taxonomic status of the blue jacaranda is unsettled. ITIS regards the older name, ''J. acutifolia'', as a synonym for ''J. mimosifolia''. However, some modern taxonomists maintain the distinction between these two species, regarding them as geographically distinct: ''J. acutifolia'' is endemic to Peru, while ''J. mimosifolia'' is native to Bolivia and Argentina. If this distinction is made, cultivated forms should be treated as ''J. mimosifolia'', since they are believed to derive from Argentine stock. Other synonyms for the blue jacaranda are ''J. chelonia'' and ''J. ovalifolia''. The blue jacaranda belongs to the section ''Monolobos'' of the genus ''Jacaranda''.

Ornamental use

The blue jacaranda has been cultivated in almost every part of the world where there is no risk of frost; established trees, however, tolerate brief spells of temperatures down to around . In the US, in areas where winter temperatures can dip to for 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 dieback, they will often rebound from the roots and grow in a shrub-like, multi-stemmed form. However, flowering and growth will be stunted if the jacaranda is grown directly on the California coast, where a lack of heat combined with cool ocean winds discourages flowering.

This plant has won the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.

The jacaranda is regarded as an invasive species in parts of South Africa and Queensland, Australia, where it can out-compete native species.

Places known for their jacarandas

Pretoria, the administrative capital of South Africa, is popularly and poetically known as Jacaranda City because of the large number of trees, which turn the city blue when they flower in spring. The jacaranda trees, far from their native Brazil, bloom every October. Water scarcity has South Africa trying to eradicate foreign species of plants and trees, including the jacaranda. Acknowledging the tree's popularity with locals, the government announced in the early 2000s that it would not remove the trees, but had banned the planting of new jacarandas. However this position softened by 2016, and they were again allowed to be planted in urban environments in a number of provinces, although the position of councils like Johannesburg remained uncertain.

The city of Grafton on the north coast of New South Wales, Australia, is famous for its jacarandas. Each year in late October and early November, the city has a jacaranda festival.

In the United States, the jacaranda is grown extensively in California, the Southwest, southeast Texas and Florida. Jacaranda can be found throughout most of Southern California, where they were imported by the horticulturalist Kate Sessions

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