Herbert Baker Street’s little white lie
Pretoria, the Jacaranda City, is known for the iconic purple trees that line the streets, but Herbert Baker Street reveals a little secret only once a year.
Once a year, Herbert Baker Street in Groenkloof reveals its secret. The purple lined streets we are so used to in the Jacaranda City are white.
Although these very rare white jacarandas can be seen in very few places, with some scattered around Wonderboom, Herbert Baker Street has the highest concentration of these white variety of the jacaranda trees.
Named after Sir Herbert Baker, who is credited for designing the Union Buildings in Pretoria, the street has been marked as one of the most beautiful in the world. To decide this, a study was conducted where a UK-based estate-agent comparison site GetAgent, used eye-tracking software to determine which streets around the world proved most attractive to the human eye. It’s no surprise then when the white jacarandas are in bloom, the effect is breathtaking.
The street has about 100 of these rare white jacarandas.
Andre Valkenburg, who works in urban forestry at the environmental management and parks division of the Tshwane metro, affectionately known as “Mr Jacaranda” by some of his students, told Rekord that the white jacarandas were so rare because they could not be grown from seed. The trees need to be grown from cuttings because the seeds they produce are not viable.
The original Jacarandas were imported by Mr H. Bruinslich, a resident of Pretoria, from Peru in 1962.
White and purple aren’t the only colours that Jacarandas come in though the other colours aren’t exactly the same species, but distant relatives.
Pink jacarandas, Stereospermum kunthianum, are distantly related to the purple ones we know that were imported from South America, and have a slightly different appearance, but still sport iconic flowers. Pink jacarandas are indigenous to Africa.
The royal poinciana (Delonix regia) tree looks like a red-flowering jacaranda tree, and is often mistaken for a red variety of the tree. The yellow flame tree (Peltophorum pterocarpum), which is even more mistaken for the jacaranda since it has very similar leaves and bright yellow groups of flowers.
Try to remember to visit Herbert Baker Street next year, the feast your eyes will behold, will be worth it.
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