Ipe in Winter

Ipe is the National Tree of Brasil. It is that yellow flowering tree next door to our house.

It is a very hard wood and was used for furniture making in the old days because of its durability. It is now a protected species and it is illegal to even cut a tree down now.

We will show the development of the Ipe Trees through the seasons. For now we show what they look like in Winter.




There are very many Ipe Trees in Águas da Prata. This is a yound one near our house.





This is an older tree full of blossoms. Notice the leaves were dropped in Autumn but the flowers flourish right into late winter.



The blooms are a very distinctive yellow about 4cm across.




Here is a very tall Ipe on the street. Notice the blossoms are at the ends of the branches.




The streets get covered in a blanket of gold when the blossoms drop.




When the blossoms are gone you see long seed pods.




This seed pod is about 20cm long. Note the last bloom hanging on. This is late in August.




Some trees are loaded with seed pods all twisted and turned in interesting shapes..




This same tree had hundreds of seed pods.




When they finally mature they split open revealing hundreds of seeds with parachute silk to disperse them in the winds of late August.



This is what the seed pod looks like when it gets its fuzzy brown coat. It comes off when you touch it.




This young Ipe has with three stages in it. It still has blooms. The seedpods have the brown fuzz and some seed pods are already open.




This little Ipe is just across the street form the one above.




This is just around the corner from our house. Notice these trees are still blooming while others have already dropped the seeds. We noticed that in nearby São João da Boa Vista there are Ipe Trees still loaded with yellow blossoms.




Even in the first week in September you can see some Ipe still in bloom in the center of town in the Praça da Bandeira.




This Ipe is still in full bloom behind the Restaurante Prata.




You can see the Ipe trees better in this View of the Praça da Bandeira. They are stoll loaded with blossoms.




In this view you can see different stages of the Ipe trees, from full of blossoms to almost none.


It has been suggested that Global Warming has these trees very confused in Brasil. So they are out of phase with the normal seasons.

Unlike in Canada where all the trees turn around the same time, here in Brasil it is an ongoing process from Autumn to the end of winter. Spring is just around the corner and the process will start again.



Photos by Urso Branco