Lignum Vitae - Jamaica's national flower
on George Hamilton (Jamaica), 01/Feb/2011 18:13, 34 days ago
Jamaica's national flower, the lignum vitae, is blooming! This is the blue flower on the most beautiful of trees with it's umbrella formation and mottled wood trunk attracting doctor birds (long tailed hummingbirds) to feed. I've actually never seen the tree in bloom so George called me from work after returning from his lunch time walk to give me a heads up. He has noticed before that when one lignum vitae tree is in bloom, they all are covered with a film of blue for a few days, maybe a week.George knew when he told me about it that we would end up having dinner underneath one. This tree is massive. It provides a beautiful ceiling over the main section of the restaurant. It's our favourite restaurant; we love the ambiance because of this tree, especially in the evening when it's floodlit. When you look up you see only branches and leaves. The only sign of flowers are a few fallen petals on the table. The flowers embrace the outside, all facing the sun like jewels on a parasol.Lignum vitae is latin for wood of life and every part of it is used for something - leaves, gum, fruit, petals, bark and trunk. I find it interesting they use a Latin term as a common name but it also has an official Latin name which of course nobody uses. One wonders, however, why they chose this fairly insignificant blossom on such a magnificent tree as the national flower when there are much flashier flowers in Jamaica such as the hibiscus or orchid. We'll never know of course, and it doesn't matter anyway. It's indigenous and important and very pretty indeed.