Jacaranda caucana

Description

Jacaranda caucana is a species of flowering tree first described by Swiss-born botanist Henri François Pittier in 1917. It is native to Costa Rica, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Colombia. Jacaranda caucana is medium-sized with a straight trunk. The crown is wide and round with fern-like leaves that almost reach the ground. The leaves are small, pointed and divided into leaflets and subleaflets. During the dry season large, purple flowers are produced. The fruits are "woody capsules". The deep purple flowers mean it is commonly used as an ornamental tree in gardens. The species are shrubs to large trees ranging in size from 20 to 30 m (66 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. A cosmopolitan plant, Jacaranda mimosifolia is quite common in Paraguay, Uruguay, Southern California, Florida, Mexico, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Italy,Portugal, Spain (particularly in Málaga) and Zambia and has been introduced to most tropical and subtropical regions to the extent that it has entered popular culture. It has been planted widely in Asia, with trees visible in many parts of Nepal, Pakistan and India. The name is of South American (more specifically Tupi-Guarani) origin, meaning fragrant.The word jacaranda was described in A supplement to Mr. Chambers's Cyclopædia, 1st ed., (1753) as "a name given by some authors to the tree the wood of which is the log-wood, used in dyeing and in medicine" and as being of Tupi-Guarani origin, by way of Portuguese.