The Jacaranda of Giardini Pubblici

For a few weeks each May this tree stops being green. Jacaranda mimosifolia flowers in violet-blue trumpets across the entire crown, and what falls carpets the ground beneath it in the same colour, which is why the species has been planted in warm cities from Pretoria to Lisbon to Sydney. It is the odd one out among the Giardini Pubblici's protected trees, and much the smallest: Italy's national register of monumental trees gives it 1.74 metres round and 16 metres tall, against figs that go to twelve. Its record is also the thinnest here. That register is the only source that has measured this tree on its own, and when regional funding for maintenance of the park's monumental trees came round in 2025 the coverage named the jacaranda without adding an age or a condition report specific to it. So the century or more given on this page is an estimate in line with the trees standing around it, not a dated figure, and it should be read that way. The species comes from the dry forests of northwestern Argentina and Bolivia. It flowers on bare or barely-leafed branches, which is what produces the effect: no green to dilute it, just the whole shape of the tree in one colour for a fortnight.