The First Jacarandas of Lisbon

Every jacaranda in Lisbon can be traced back to this garden. The trees that turn the city lilac each May, more than three hundred of them on Avenida 5 de Outubro alone, descend from the first specimens acclimatised here in the early 1800s under Félix de Avelar Brotero, who directed the Ajuda garden from 1811. Brotero did not keep the tree to himself. He handed seed to anyone in Lisbon willing to plant it, which is how a South American species became the signature tree of a Portuguese capital. Two of those first jacarandas are still standing here, among younger ones planted since, and they kept one habit that gives them away: while the rest of the city flowers through May and into June, these two are the last in Lisbon to open. Why is not settled. The suggestion is that being the first to acclimatise left them on a slightly different clock from their own descendants. The garden around them was laid out in 1768 for King José I and is the oldest in Portugal, small enough to cross in half an hour, which makes this an easy visit to time properly. Come at the end of June, when the avenues have dropped their petals and these two are still in flower.