Jacarandas have burst forth once more with their galvanizing purple-blue flowers, an invitation to feel joy or annoyance, depending on one’s perspective toward the tree’s spectacular yet messy blossoms. This year’s flowering has arrived three weeks earlier than last year’s, which many avid jacaranda buffs experienced as later than usual. Gretchen North, a biology professor at Occidental College, says the variable blossoming date reflects the tree’s non-native status.
“The thing to realize about tropical trees is that they’re not at home here,” says North. She explains that jacarandas respond to environmental cues, including heat and light, to determine when to release blossom-triggering flowering time proteins, known as FT. Because environmental cues are different in Los Angeles than in the jacaranda’s native savannas of Argentina and Brazil, the trees do not flower here by clockwork.
Instead, they improvise, leading to jacaranda flower fluctuation on the calendar and block-by-block across Los Angeles. “I live under two jacaranda trees in my house,” says Tim Thibault, curator of woody plant materials at the Huntington . “Plants one block away are flowering, but mine, not yet.
” The San Marino museum has recorded flowering dates as early as Jan. 8 in 2010 and as late as July 7 in 2016. So far, flowering jacarandas have been spotted along residential streets in East Hollywood, Silver Lake, Venice, Pasadena and Long Beach.
Thibault pays close attention t.
