Florida seems to have only two seasons — summer and winter — but this past week, everywhere I looked I saw flowering trees, and it really felt like spring. So I decided to record some of our trees for you.
Visitors to Florida always exclaim over — and want to know the name of — this beautiful lavender tree. It's a Jacaranda tree.
An equally dramatic tree is the Royal Poinciana, also known as Flamboyant or Delonix Regia. As you might be able to discern in the photo below, its leaves are fern-like.
This Magnolia tree is just across the street from me. The Magnolia is an ancient plant and its history is fascinating — read a little more about it
here.
The Frangipani tree, also known as Plumeria, comes in several species with varying flowers.
About 15 years ago, St. Petersburg's mayor made civic landscaping one of his priorities, and he planted hundreds of Crepe Myrtle trees. Now the city is benefiting from his vision.
I'll end with another tree that always gets visitors' attention, the Tabebuia tree.
All the photographs in this posting were taken around St. Petersburg in the span of one week!
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Dear Mark,
ReplyDeleteWhat lovely photographs! I do love trees that flower. It always seems so tropical. When My parents moved our family to Melbourne, one of the first trees they bought and planted, was a jacaranda. The tree became a good climbing tree (along with a neighbouring plum tree). Seeing a Jacaranda tree always evoke very pleasant childhood memories!
Kirk
PS
I love the crepe myrtle trees too. They have a lot of them growing in Menton (near Nice) and they always look very pretty when in flower.
Dear Kirk,
DeleteAt my last house, I had a Jacaranda tree in the front yard, and the yard was quite a show-off when the tree was in bloom. But for most of the year the tree was quite bare.
I was a tree climber in my childhood, too, and had my own tree house. I was fortunate to have parents who left me to my own imagination, rather than rounding me up for organized activities every day of the week!
Thank you Mark for sharing your beautiful tree blossoms with us. They are all new to me and for that reason, so fascinating. Your single magnolia blossom photograph is outstanding.
ReplyDeleteDear Gina,
DeleteI'm glad you like the Magnolia photo. To tell you the truth, despite the fact that I've now lived half my life in Florida, I still in wonder that I live in a place that has palm trees, let alone Jacarandas and Royal Poincianas!
Your Royal Poinciana looks rather like our Flame of the Forest, and of course we have the divinely-scented frangipani, (three around the chaises longue at our pool), which provide a delightful accompaniment to doing nothing. I think we have something similar to tabebuia; we call it morning glory, but it's probably something else entirely. Anyway, we're at the beginning of the rainy season, and pretty torrential, so most of the blossoms have dropped.
ReplyDeleteDear Columnist,
DeleteI've noticed those red trees from several of your balcony views, and always assumed that you were surrounded by Royal Poincianas. I think all these trees have multiple names, depending upon where in the world they're found.
Dear Mark - lovely to see your local blossom trees. When I have visited Anna Maria Island during March it has always been too early for them.
ReplyDeleteThe Tabebuia looks very similar to our laburnum trees, and we have the Magnolia Grandiflora, but the others trees are exotics to my eyes.
May be you know more about flowers than you let on!!!
I know summer is very hot, but what is winter like?
Dear Rosemary,
DeleteFlorida can indeed look exotic, and as I said to Gina, sometimes I still pinch myself. We have loads of Hibiscus, which can be trained to look like trees, and I was tempted to include them in this posting (but I know they're technically not trees). All that aside, most of what I know about plants came from The Flower Children book!
You ask about Florida in the winter. It can get down to freezing — which is always a huge concern for our citrus industry and strawberry growers — but it has snowed only once in St. Petersburg in the past 50 years, and even that was just a flurry. Our days will vary between the 40s and the 60s or 70s, but my masonry house will hold the cold in all winter. And of course, even though the temperatures will climb to what you would consider spring weather, by now our blood has thinned out, and we shiver in the 60s!
Hello Mark, These are really beautiful photos. There is a tree with similarly-colored lavender blooms in Ohio that blooms a little earlier in the spring; its flowers are much smaller that these, and produce the effect of a lilac-colored haze.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that there is such a variety of vivid color within one week--I wonder if there is any evolutionary or survival advantage to this, such as competing for pollinators, or attracting specific ones.
--Road to Parnassus
Hello, Jim,
DeleteYour last comment reminds me of something I read when I was reading up on the Roseate Spoonbill. 19th century visitors to Florida recorded seeing so many of the birds that sometimes the sky itself seemed obscured. Certainly with such huge migrations, pollination must have favored unsettled areas.
Such beauty you have all around you! I do love the Jacaranda tree. I did not know the names of most of the ones you have featured. We also have an abundance of crepe myrtles. I have a line of them on the side of my driveway.
ReplyDeleteYou need a cat to keep you warm in the winter!
Dear Theresa - I actually had a rabbit for six years. I chose him as a "simpler" pet, but ended up respecting a lot of qualities I never imagined rabbits could have!
DeleteWOW! So beautiful. Unfortunately I'd be hiding behind closed doors breathing air conditioned air. Yes, I am one of those allergy ridden people whose LOUD sneezes annoy everyone. It is my life's burden. Ha.
ReplyDeleteBut I enjoyed seeing your pictures, Mark. No allergic reaction at all. :)
Dear Yvette,
DeleteYou have my full sympathy here. I had no allergies before I moved to Florida. Now I live under two (2) giant live oaks and have discovered that I am allergic to oak pollen! Part of each year I not only sneeze but suffer from hives because of the oaks! But they do shade my house and make it about 5 degrees cooler around here.