Arboreal Blues

In the last days before Christmas it would be a far too Grinch or Scrooge-like to focus on sad feelings so the blues I am thinking about are the colours. Now you may have gone out and bought a splendid Blue Spruce for your Christmas tree and very fine it will look too. With the botanical name Picea Pungens you should have that wonderful resinous aroma so evocative of the season that no-one in the Real Tree brigade is prepared to forgo.

On the other side of the planet, in Australia there is another kind of tree flaunting the most bewitching mauve-blue at this time of the year. It is almost the same colour we find in southern England on the floor of  beech woodland in April and May when the bluebell carpet flourishes. This paler colour is borne aloft in clouds of blossom on the branches of the jacaranda trees in late November to December. I have only ever seen them as street trees in an urban setting but it is easy to see why they are so popularly planted for that purpose.

 

A vibrant blue against the brick and stone buildings and seemingly more purple against a blue sky, the flowers eventually carpet the ground and give way to feathery leaves. 

 A blue to uplift; a blue to beat the blues! If the flowers of lilac and lavender have colours named after them then surely the jacaranda deserves no less an honour.