The Judas Trees of Placa Joanic

Barcelona calls this small grove at Placa Joanic 'the trees of love', and each April they make the case themselves: the whole crown erupts in magenta flowers that break straight out of the bark, trunk and branches both, before a single leaf shows. It is one of the few flowering habits dramatic enough that the city's own broadcaster runs a story most springs pointing readers toward wherever it is blooming that year. The three trunks here, planted in 1956 in what is now Vila de Gracia, are old enough and large enough that Barcelona catalogued them as trees of local interest in 1996, unusual for a species that rarely reaches this size in the city. Their crowns spread up to 10 metres, and the widest trunk measures 1.65 metres round. The Judas tree takes its English name from a legend that Judas Iscariot hanged himself from one; in the Mediterranean it is better known simply as the tree that turns a street corner purple every spring. This one gets noticed on schedule, in the second half of April, when Gracia's small square briefly does exactly that.