The Roots of Jacarandas & CDMX

This is a longer version of a post on March 7th.

Jacaranda season has come early in Mexico City, that glorious time of the year when the city is covered in blossoming lavender-blue trees (as is one’s Instagram account). Its also the time of the year when travel writers roll out stories of the origin of Jacarandas first arriving in Mexico City. As it happens, there are at least four versions out there, and the truth may in fact lie in a mixture of all of them.

Version One. Inspired by Japan’s gift of 3,000 Cherry trees to Washington D.C in 1912., Mexico’s President (Pascual Ortiz Rubio, 1930-32) requested the same donation from the Emperor of Japan. The Japanese checked with the prominent Mexico-based but Japanese landscaper Tatsugoro Matsumoto, who said the Mexico City climate was not right for cherry trees, (not enough temperature change from Winter to Spring, unable to withstand lack of Spring rain) and he instead recommended the Brazilian Jacaranda tree. And so it came to be that Mexico City was adorned with Jacarandas.

Version Two. The same Tatsugoro Matsumoto started planting the Jacarandas trees in Mexico City's Reforma, Insurgentes, Condesa, Roma backed by President Alvaro Obregon (1920-24), and then by President Elias Plutarco Calles (1924-1928), the villain in Graham Greene’s masterpiece The Power and the Glory. Matsumoto had come to Mexico in about 1896 via Peru, having befriended a wealthy Mexican landowner Jose Landero Y Coss, He was soon cultivating gardens for the rich and famous in then fashionable Colonia Roma, including then President Porfirio Diaz (1876, 1887-1880, 1884-1911) for whom he designed a Japanese garden and artificial lake in Porfirio’s 1910 exhibition commemorating the centenary of Mexico's independence (held at what is now the Museo del Chopo).?

Version Three. Miguel Angel Quevedo (1862-1946), the Tree Apostle, after whom the Mexico City Avenue and Metro stop is named, cultivated Jacarandas in his Viveros de Coyoacan, perhaps originally imported into Veracruz from Manaus, Brazil. In 1910 there were 230 such Jacarandas in his Coyoacan nursery and he then likely planted the trees in some of Mexico's streets.

Version Four. Jacarandas were first identified in Mexico in the early 19c by the Brits. Aurelio Asiain cites “The British Florist” (Henry G. Bohn, Londres, 1846), Jacaranda, “a native of Mexico, whence seeds were first brought by Sir Thomas Hardy". In the 1827 "The Botanical Register.. Exotic Plants Cultivated in British Gardens" - "Seeds of this fine new species (Jacaranda) were sent from Mexico by Sir Thomas Hardy to Lady Admiral Campbell". (This is the sailor Thomas Hardy who the dying Admiral Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar uttered his last words "Kiss me Hardy" and who came to Mexico in 1819).

So Jacarandas have a disputed and convoluted past mirroring Mexico’s own complex and fought-over modern history. And as Jacarandas usually die after about 50 years, most of the trees one sees today were in fact planted in the 1960s and afterwards.

Meanwhile the great Matsumoto died in Mexico City in 1955 aged 94. His legacy lives on in the splendid Jacaranda trees, and less romantically in the now dying Palm trees in Paseo de Palmas that he also parented. At Matsumoto's old family florist in Colima 92, Colonia Roma, amidst the bustling restaurants of what is now Mexico's trendiest barrio, there is a padlocked store that still has the sign of Matsumoto MR in the shop window. No one has been there for years I was told, but peering in from the outside, the store looks clean and furnished, decorated with some Japanese ornaments, suggesting its now a shrine to the great man.

If anyone wants to do further digging, I recommend some of the following articles.

https://labrujula.nexos.com.mx/entre-los-fuegos-de-artificio-de-la-jacaranda/?has the best information on Miguel Angel Quevedo and Jacarandas.

https://discovernikkei.org/es/journal/2016/5/6/tatsugoro-matsumoto/?is the best on Matsumoto

https://verne.elpais.com/verne/2019/03/22/mexico/1553245724_095801.html?has an interview with Matsumoto's grandson and is very well researched

https://arquine.com/tatsugoro-matsumoto-y-la-magia-de-las-jacarandas-en-mexico/?is an excellent piece too

https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=Ss1cAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP257&lpg=PP257&dq=thomas+hardy+jacaranda+mexico+botanical+register+exotic&source=bl&ots=W6n6gXTbUV&sig=ACfU3U0UmC95fYsEdnkZLtpsWrOkmqYxiA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjl-p2O8sn9AhWpH0QIHZSMDFIQ6AF6BAgZEAM#v=onepage&q=thomas%20hardy%20jacaranda%20mexico%20botanical%20register%20exotic&f=false?has the reference to Sir Thomas Hardy and his Jacaranda gift

And then there are the 10000s of brilliant Instagram photos.This one warns that if you scroll too much, you may end up taking a trip to CDMX right away?https://www.instagram.com/p/Bv9SUhvAovG/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link