Jacaranda

Jacaranda lays a purple carpet, and the city walks on royalty. When the jacaranda blooms, whole streets disappear under fallen blossoms — violet clouds above, blue carpets below — and in Pretoria the students have a saying: if a blossom falls on your head during exams, you will pass. She takes the superstition seriously, or pretends to; every October she shakes a little extra over the examination halls. "Luck," she says, "is just bloom with good timing." The Flowering Court, which trades in brief glory, envies her two-act performance: the flowering, then the carpet, beauty twice spent. Her ferny leaves are delicate as lace, her wood pale and fine. Asked which matters more — the cloud or the carpet — she answers like the court's true aristocrat: "The cloud is for the sky. The carpet is for the people. I serve both."