Tree of the week

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Happy weekend. To a New England boy, one of the great surprises of living in Southern California is the happy realization that there really are seasons here. True, summer dominates, and the other three are subtle, but they’re real. As real as the spectacular flowering trees Pieter Severynen writes about this week.

Pink Trumpet Tree -- Tabebuia impetiginosa

‘Usually at this is the time of year we get treated to the Pink Trumpet Tree’s spectacular flower show. This South American tree occurs from Mexico to Northern Argentina. Called pau d’arco in Portuguese, it loses its leaves during the tropical winter, the dry season in Brazil. Here the branches are bare a little out of season but the tree conveniently blooms at that time so that there is nothing to detract from the great masses of pink/magenta trumpet-shaped flowers with a canary yellow streak. They will stay on the tree for about three weeks. Sometimes flowers appear for a second time. After flowering, new olive-green palmate leaves with five to seven, 2- to 4-inch-long elliptical leaflets quickly cover the tree, accompanied by foot-long glossy seed pods that look like green beans. The seed pods may hang on for a long time.

‘This semi-deciduous tree, a member of the colorful Bignoniaceae, or trumpet vine, family, grows at a moderate pace to 25-40 feet tall and wide. Eventually it assumes a dome to vase shape, with many angled branches; it never has the strong branch structure of an oak or a sycamore. Bark is smooth and brown. The tree needs moderate water when young and does not bloom till older.

‘The yellowish wood is very dense and heavy. Rich in tannins, it resists decay. Wood from several Tabebuia species is used for outdoor decks and boardwalks; some of it is overharvested in the wild. Extract of the inner bark is used as an expectorant and an antibiotic in its native area. While the tree saw centuries of use by natives, it was not ‘discovered’ by European scientists till Johann Baptist von Spix and Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius of the 1817-1820 Austrian Commission brought back samples from Brazil.’

Thanks, Pieter.
E-mail Pieter: plseve@earthlink.net
Photo Credit: Pieter Severynen