jacaranda

I'm back in LA for a couple of days for a couple of reasons - but one of them, I'm sure, is to admire the jacaranda trees.  Many years ago, I remember reading a pony book by Mary Treadgold called No Ponies -  set in France just after WW2 - in which there was a jacaranda tree in bloom.  I had absolutely no idea what a jacaranda tree was, but the exotic name stuck, and when I first encountered these glorious purple trees all over Los Angeles, I remembered instantly where I'd heard it first ... (and I just looked up Mary Treadgold, who had a fascinating career not just writing pony stories and other books for children, but was also a broadcaster for the BBC and, it turns out, an old girl of my school ...).