In spring, my favourite tree is the jacaranda. Its silver-grey boughs are splayed, sprouting yellow, fern-like leaves from branches that are long and slender like an artist’s fingers. Several seed pods, round and hard and bronzed, dangle like oversized earrings. A few weeks ago, the leaves were lime green. In yet a few more weeks, when every other tree is green, the jacaranda will shed its leaves. Soon enough, the branches will hang heavy with clusters of purple, trumpet-shaped flowers.

Undoubtedly, the jacaranda triumphs when it’s ablaze with its trademark blooms. By late spring, blue skies along the eastern seaboard of Australia are awash with an iridescent purple haze. Blink and you could miss the season. As one horticulturalist put it, ‘It’s the kind of tree you feel nostalgic for even when you’re standing right in front of it.’