The Blight of the Jacaranda

The jacaranda mimosifolia may have been introduced to the United States in the 19th century, but it was introduced to my home in Chicago on the day I was born, in a climate not usually suitable for the blossoms that around late spring become the blight of Orange County. That's when those spindly South American trees become thick with delicate lavender blooms, gucking up the streets and sidewalks and cars of the Orange County coast. It was also the time I started getting calls from my mother.

As a gift to celebrate my birth, a friend of my parents from Jamaica offered them a small jacaranda plant meant to mirror my growth. It’s 10 feet tall now and presses against the ceiling and picture window of my mother’s friend’s apartment. When my dear mother passed away several years ago, finding a home for this tree was drama worthy of reality television. She had moved six times in one decade, the moves predicated by the height of ceilings and availability of northern light to the cherished tree/me. Her friends, worried about her psychological health, had urged her to give away the tree. In her mind, the jacaranda and I were connected by an invisible root that controlled both mental and physical health, and both of these were dependent on her constant nurturing of the plant. I have not stayed in touch with the current owner of the tree, though I do receive periodic reports that it is thriving.

During the time of year when things started to drop off - blossoms, branches, pods - without fail, my mother thought it was a sign that something was wrong. She called some days without even saying hello.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Lot’s of blossoms falling?” I said.
“More than usual. Are you sick??”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Maybe a little depressed," I admitted.
“I knew it,” she said.

And it continued like that until September, when it was just the delicate leaves which opened and closed with dawn and dusk that I had to contend with.

But my jacaranda gripes are nothing compared to those of Frank, an Irvine resident who has been seen prowling the Woodbridge area with an axe marked for those delicate trees lining the streets.

“People come to visit and they say, 'Ooh, ooh, look at those pretty trees. What are they? They look Japanese. I love them,'" he said, when approached recently as he swept the blossoms (for the third time in one day) from his front walkway. “They say, 'Ooh, what pretty trees, what nice street names, what a clean place,' and all I can say is, ‘Lift up your shoe.’”
    
“My shoe?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Lift up your shoe.”
    
So I raised my foot and Frank practically ripped it off my leg. “See? See? Look,” he said, grabbing onto my sole.
“There you have it, Jacaranda goo, which gets tracked onto the carpet, ruins your house, covers your car, gets in your face. You sweep them up and down they fall again, you could drown in the stuff.”

“What about the axe?” I asked.
“It makes me feel better just to know that if I want to, I can chop one down," he said.
    
Similar sentiments have been reported on jacaranda tree-lined blocks around Laguna Beach, Newport Beach and Costa Mesa.
    
Lucky for me, there are no jacaranda trees on my Corona del Mar block. But there are eucalyptus trees.