The California Garden and Landscape History Society produces a gorgeous quarterly journal (.) This spring’s edition features the desert smoke tree with an article written by editor Steven Keylon and illustrated by photographer Millicent Harvey, both of whom qualify at genuine desert rats. Millicent Harvey's gorgeous image of smoke trees. But these humble desert trees burst out in a profusion of the most gorgeous shade of this now royal hue each summer and have done so for centuries, long before any human construct of hierarchies.) Its elite status likely stems from the rarity and cost of the dye originally used to produce it. ![]() (Queen Elizabeth I forbade anyone except close members of the royal family to wear purple. The indescribable purple color of the smoke tree was thus characterized by Ralph Cornell, the famous landscape architect and designer in 1938.įor centuries, purple has been the color of kings. Closer inspection also discloses a delicate perfume that further adds to the illusory charm of so unusual a plant.” Then, the tiny, pea-shaped flowers, that have been described as pure ultramarine and as deep as violet-purple, appear in such profusion and in such unbelievable intensity of color that they actually obliterate all vision of the plant structure with a saturating deluge of brilliant pigment that can be seen from afar. “To know the smoke tree is an experience but one cannot know it at its strikingly best unless he has seen it in full flush of flower in June or early July, after the first blast of summer heat has driven visiting dilettanti back to the refrigerated comforts of coastal civilization. Millicent Harvey's close up of smoke tree bloom.
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