Locals and tourists alike have been enchanted as Australia’s beautiful jacaranda trees have bloomed for the spring.
Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, the North Shore and the central business district are covered with purple flowers, as well as the town of Grafton on the New South Wales north coast. Grafton, which is often called the jacaranda capital of Australia, held the annual Grafton Jacaranda Festival last week. The town is also home to Australia’s largest Jacaranda tree, which is 30-metres-high, according to Destination NSW.
Jacaranda trees are not a species native to Australia, but can be found around Sydney. Ted Hoare, senior arborist for the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney and Centennial Parklands, said Sydney’s Harbour backdrop makes the jacaranda season spectacular.
“It’s a truly beautiful sight to view the vibrant blue flowers set against a Harbour backdrop. We have 16 trees in the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney, including a unique white flowering jacaranda, and nine trees in Centennial Parklands. Jacaranda trees are becoming synonymous with Sydney and as this year is the Garden’s 200th birthday, I highly recommend coming down for a visit and seeing our trees in bloom,” he said in a statement.
The tourism group suggest a few places those wanting to see the trees can go. They advise that visitors head to the North Shore, “pack a picnic and head to Kirribilli, Lavender Bay, Greenwich, Waverton, Hunters Hill, Woolwich, Longueville and Wollstonecraft for a long, lazy lunch under the trees”, or head to the Eastern Suburbs, Sydney City, Inner Sydney or Grafton.
The trees are so beloved that when one jacaranda, which stood in the University of Sydney’s main quad since 1928, collapsed, the university posted a new bulletin information students and mourning the loss.
Students at the university “lived by the folklore that any undergraduate who fails to study before the tree's first bloom appears will fail their exams”. However, the university knew the tree was nearing the end of its life and had taken cuttings so the tree will be replaced with one of genetically identical stock.
