Jacaranda somehow smells it first….

We grow happier as we start spotting the first of its blooms showing up. And for a special reason, which we pin on jacarandas in full bloom in the neighborhood: we know that our summer vacation is not far - the one we all have been looking forward to.  All this is thanks to our city gardeners, who made a U-alley by planting the jacarandas in line on either side of a paved walkway alongside a long dried-up river. How did I then know that it used to be a river without there being any trace of water? There is still an arch bridge built during the time of the Ottoman Empire connecting people on both sides.

For quite long, we didn’t have a name to call the tree with the purple-blue flowers by. Nor did we feel any need for one. Dr. Paul, the crazy man with a scientific temperament among us, first called it “Jacaranda mimosifolia”; this didn’t take long to become a household name but the “mimosifolia” part was conveniently dropped. No one refuted Dr. Paul as our knowledge of botany didn’t even cover the basics, and his authority in scientific matters was undoubtable.

I am not yet sure whether to call it a flowering shrub or a tree. The jacaranda is now enjoying cosmopolitan status, having been widely introduced to several countries from its native Americas. Saudi Arabia – especially its cities sitting on mountain ranges - seemingly houses them better than their native homes. What a marvelous treat for tourists escaping the summer heat, coming to enjoy the lovely cool and often drizzling weather of Abha, a city in the Al Saravath Mountains. As Denise “Nisi” Mckenzie so memorably put it, “Oh, Jacaranda! Lining streets with purple bliss, dreamy petals dance”. 

Let us enjoy this delicate and fragrant dance while the magic lasts, before the jacarandas get decked out in their summer greenery.