28 Feb 2016

Golden Shower Tree

A few weeks ago, these trees were in full bloom in our neighbourhood.
 
I can't remember planting one, but Grandma C tells me she did it in 2002, the year we retired.

Our tree did not flower till 2 years ago, when we were excited to see it produce a single solitary bunch.

Last year, it made a bit of progress and produced 7 bunches.

This is what it looked like this year.
More than 7, I think as I didn't count them.

Some close ups of the flowers from our tree.
A few are quite high up in the tree, with the sky making a lovely backdrop.
The flowers appear to bloom near the top of the bunch first, while the lower ones are still in bud.
I believe it is also the state flower of Kerala in India.
And I have to add, before I forget again, that the Perth Wildcats (mentioned a few posts ago) did break the world record after qualifying for 30 consecutive  playoffs in any sport.  Since then, they are now in the grand finals, for the best of three games.

10 comments:

  1. Arthur, lovely blooms in Australia as usual. The blooms on your tree will grow more and more with each passing year like the matured ones which covers almost the entire tree. We have some yellow blooms which look similar here, but not sure whether they are Golden Showers. Nonetheless, I am always impressed by Australian blooms!

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    1. sweetee, I'm glad you mentioned that because in one of my visits I did see some trees with similar bunches of yellow flowers. Very similar, I should say. However the trees were much taller than the trees here and there were only a few bunches of flowers. That could be because my visit was too short to see the tree in full bloom.

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    2. The Golden Flower (Cassia fistula) tree can be seen in SG. The following youtube video shows one in beautiful bloom next to what seems to be an HDB block

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XiS_YNo3wA&ebc=ANyPxKqbsYR0tMer5GZyaXBYxJicSEdsqv8KxrTQpywbLatU_WA7jciHjo5fvvTmruTTHHN6bEGWediF9wXV5Pkh2ce4HgTI2Q

      BTW that tree is also the national tree of Thailand.

      What is the state tree of Queensland? Does Australia have a national tree (other than the gum tree or eucalyptus tree, ha ha)?

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    3. The ones I saw in Singapore (fleetingly from a taxi) must have been the same tree, then. They probably grew much taller than those here because of the equatorial climate and heavy rainfall. I can't find anything about state or national trees here, but we do have state and national flowers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_symbols_of_states_and_territories_of_Australia

      The national tree is the golden wattle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_symbols_of_Australia
      The sporting colours of green and gold come from this.

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  2. Luke Tan1:30 pm

    They are simply beautiful. Can't have the privilege to plant trees as I live in an apartment :(

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    1. Sometimes I wish we live in an apartment so we don't have to maintain a garden!

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  3. I shall take a closer look the next time I come across a tree with yellow blooms in SG. Now that I've seen the close-ups of the flowers,buds and leaves, I should be able to confirm. I've long suspected that the abundance of the Eucalyptus trees have somewhat aggravated the extensive forest/bush fires in Australia....we have long used the Eucalyptus Oil/Bird Oil for colds, aches and sprains...

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    1. I remember the eucalyptus oil bottle - it had a parrot on it. I just googled and found it: http://www.bosistos.com/en/home

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  4. We have those here too. Thrive in hot dry weather, will bloom in all its glory, very nice when there are a lot of trees growing together.

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    1. I think they grow quite tall in tropical climates. Ours grow to about 3-4 metres only, probably limited by our dry climate.

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