Lively and lovely

[sartorias]

Yesterday a bunch of Jane Austen readers crammed into a friend's house for a lively, quote-punctuated discussion Mansfield Park, but before it began I had to take a picture of this jacaranda tree below. Sorry the color is muted--we've got some relief from the heat by marine layer. Though there is no hope of rain until November or December, every

Comments

[brithistorian]

That's a beautiful tree - I've never seen one of those before!

[sartorias]

They are called jacaranda, and they are all over Southern California. They bloom twice a year, spring and "fall" which basically means at the start of our hot summer and during the hottest portion of summer when everyone else has autumn. Since we had several fierce heat waves over the past few weeks, this year's blooms are especially brilliant.

[brithistorian]

Thanks for sharing the picture - it's something really neat that I wouldn't have seen otherwise.

[sartorias]

:-)

[asakiyume]

Absolutely stunning.

[sartorias]

My favorite shade of lavender, too.

[sartorias]

It was a lot of fun!

[celestialgldfsh]

Lovely picture! I have a jacaranda tree, but alas, it has never bloomed. Someday...

[sartorias]

Even in this recent heat? Wow!

[celestialgldfsh]

I'm near Phoenix, but yeah. Never bloomed. I read somewhere that they need to be mature to start blooming, so every year I hope this is the year!

[sartorias]

Well you certainly don't lack hot weather a-plenty! So maybe the tree has been too young. Indeed, I don't recollect seeing small ones in bloom--they are all fairly hefty in size.

[catwithclaws]

gorgeous!

and sounds like a very fun sort of discussion too :)

[sartorias]

It was!