Outdoor hour #16 - We didn't follow the assignment

This week our assignment was to plant Sunflowers. I know my kids would love to grow sunflowers but since we don't have any land to plant anything in and every seed we have planted in pots seems to end up dinner for a squirrel. One of the many that invade our space each day. I guess we could plant some and keep it inside for awhile... maybe we will see about doing that but this week we did a little study of a tree that has lately bloomed in our neighborhood. We have been seeing it pop up as we drive down the street. It is also often used in the shopping centers and we saw a whole bunch in the garden around the children's Museum we went to yesterday. So we took a few minutes to really look at this beautiful tree and I did a little research online and figured out what kind of tree it is.

Let me introduce you to the Jacaranda Tree

These lovely purple flowered trees are all in bloom at the moment and stand out while we drive around.
I didn't know anything about this tree last week. I just know I have always loved the purple when it shows up each year. I asked a friend of mine if she knew the name of the tree and she couldn't tell me but she said I think it starts with a "J".
At first I thought it was purple leaves or something but when you get up close you can see there are green fern like leaves on the tree along with the purple blossoms. We of course picked a few of the purple flowers so we could smell them. They do smell very nice.


Here is Sophie and Ian sitting under a few of these beautiful purple trees.

When getting a good look at the trees we noticed some of them had this dried leaf like things dangling from them.

We pulled one off to examine it and it wasn't like any leaf we had felt. It was hard like a nut or cone.
Each one looked like two leaves and we tried to open up one but couldn't do it. It was really hard and stiff. Nothing that was going to easily break open.

Here is Sophie showing me how far open she could get it open
We finally found a few on the ground that had been opened. Maybe an animal broke them open to eat what was inside. I don't know. But when looking on the ground around these trees and seeing all the flowers that had fallen off and all the seed pods on the ground I thought this wouldn't be a fun tree to have to clean up after.
When online looking up information on these trees I came across this picture. It shows the leaves, flowers, and the seeds. In the description on the page it called them papery, winged seeds that flutter and spin as they are carried by the wind.Evidently this tree flowers in the Summer and looses its leaves in the Winter so it is always sort of one season behind. I don't mind at all. It is nice to see so much color when everything is starting to heat up and dry up.