Showing posts with label purple tree. Show all posts
Showing posts with label purple tree. Show all posts

Wednesday

Grape Smelling Purple Texas Mountain Laurel


Also known as Grape Soda or Cool Aid Tree due to it's grapelicious fragrance. Indigenous to Texas, New Mexico and Mexico, this large shrub or small tree is evergreen, thornless and long-lived. Glossy dark green compound leaves provide a lush look for desert gardens. Showy clusters of purple wisteria-like flowers perfume the air in the spring. The thick seed pods contain orange-red seeds. Plant in full sun to part shade and in well-drained soils. Temperatures as low as 25F and as high as 120F. Native Indians used to make stunning jewelry from the bright red seeds.

 


 




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Friday

Texas Mountain Laurel Mescal Bean

Texas Mountain Laurel - Sophora secundiflora
Drooping clusters of purple blossoms, very fragrant
Native to Texas and Mexico

Texas mountain laurel grows in limestone soils in Central and Southwest Texas and to 5000 feet in the Chisos and Davis Mountains.


 The pinnate leaves with their lustrous, leathery upper surface provide year long beauty, enhanced in mid-spring by the densely-flowered racemes of lavender or violet wisteria like flowers having the scent of grape Kool Aid. 

The gray to black, somewhat constricted seedpods contain red to red-orange seeds which are sometimes used in jewelry. 

In zones colder than Zone 8, flowering is not reliable because of late freezes which damage the buds. Texas mountain laurel is difficult to successfully transplant from the wild because they dislike root disturbance.

Seeds found available here:  Texas Mountain Laurel

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