Jacaranda mimosifolia

The jacaranda have been delighting once again. This stunning specimen is in a park right by my local shopping centre and at this time of year I always take a moment to walk around it before heading home with the groceries!

Native to Brazil. Jacaranda mimosifolia, the species of jacaranda that Australians know and love – has a small native range in the north-west of Argentina and neighbouring Bolivia. There, it persists in a stressful, arid environment, making it well prepared for the Australian climate.

According to Systemic Botanist from the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney, Dr Russell Barrett, it’s likely the first few jacarandas were propagated in Brisbane. “We don’t have huge numbers of details about how it got here, but as far as we can tell the first seeds were brought in from Argentina to Brisbane. Shipping captains brought seeds to trade that they thought would be of interest, likely to make some cash on the side. It is understood that a former director of the Brisbane City Botanical Garden, Walter Hill, brought some seeds off a shipping captain and planted them in 1864. And if you look at the current records on the Australasian Virtual Herbarium as to where they were recorded naturalised, you do get these span of dots centering out from Brisbane and they probably came to Sydney rapidly after".