Jacaranda

Description:

This small (15') tree was confused. It had a few blooms completely out of season, and some green seed pods. The tree next to it had spent seed pods normal for this season (pictures 4 and 5). Usually jacaranda flower profusely in the spring; the whole tree becoming a mass of lavender flowers as in the Wikipedia article cited.

Habitat:

Native to tropical and subtropical regions of South America (especially Argentina, Brazil, Peru and Uruguay), Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean

Notes:

The species are shrubs to large trees ranging in size from 2 to 30 m (6.6 to 98 ft) tall. The leaves are bipinnate in most species, pinnate or simple in a few species. The flowers are produced in conspicuous large panicles, each flower with a five-lobed blue to purple-blue corolla; a few species have white flowers. The fruit is an oblong to oval flattened capsule containing numerous slender seeds. The genus differs from other genera in the Bignoniaceae in having a staminode that is longer than the stamens, tricolpate pollen, and a chromosome number of 18.