#paulownia

[brooklynbridgebirds]

Orchard Oriole Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 1, Top of Granite Prospect

[allthedesiredusernamesaretaken]

" I have great respect for the past. If you don't know where you've come from, you don't know where you're going. I have respect for the past, but I'm a person of the moment. I'm here, and I do my best to be completely centered at the place I'm at, then I go forward to the next place. "

- Maya Angelou

📷 mine

[eidola-eidola]

[tanuki-kimono]

Fancy antique houmongi with eye-catching fuji (wisteria) draping the soulders, and flowering kiri (paulownia) on the skirt.

[transparentgentlemenmarker]

Un Paulownia

[uxbridge]

Spring wildflowers

[giostrugglies]

Paulownia tomentosa

aka. princess tree, empress tree. foxglove-tree

Native to central + eastern China and Korean peninsula, grows extremely fast and is invasive in North America and Europe, also growing in South Africa, New Zealand and Japan. Grows up to 25m tall, flowers are violet-blue and appear in early spring. In Japan, its common to plant this tree when a couple has a daughter, at the age of the child's adulthood the tree will also reach maturity, and its then felled to a tansu dresser as a wedding gift. The name Paulownia is in honour of Queen Anna Pavlovna (which is where 'princess / empress tree came from), and tomentosa means 'covered in hairs'.

phylum: Angiospermae > class: Eudicots > order: Lamiales > family: Paulowniaceae > genus: Paulownia > species

[classic-asian-art]

Flowers of a Hundred Worlds (Momoyogusa): Chrysanthemum and Paulownia (Kikukiri) by Kamisaka Sekka (color woodcuts with gold and silver)