Strongly considering collecting seeds and planting these around trees as revenge on squirrels for digging up seedlings and stealing fruit. 😈… 🐿️🐿️🐿️😱☠️
These small ornamental trees are in bloom now in southeastern Spain. They are new to me, but it’s some kind of Bauhinia (“Orchid Tree”) in the Legume family. Possibly Bauhinia variegata.
Leaves and flowers are edible but not fine eating. The flowers are better than the leaves - tastes like a floral, a bit overripe cucumber. The leaves are grassy.
Rabbits love this plant and will chew it down to stubble so if you actually want to see flowers, it needs protection.
The flowers and leaves are edible but too cute to eat. But in case you are wondering, the flowers taste like lettuce with hint of cucumber and leaves taste like lightly peppery cucumber.
The blooms started in early spring. The internet says they bloom in the fall. (Lies, LIES!) Plant is not self-fertile so you need two. Currently hand-pollinating bc only two plants have opened flowers and the rest are still buds. No pests noticed. Needs protection from high winds.
#ClimateDiary year and 1/2 ago, chipdrop arborists used a stump grinder and chopped up a lot of iris bulbs with the tree and brought the bulbs with the drop. I planted all of them and some are flowering now… a couple months early.
And this winter was so mild, squirrels planted peanuts in the yard last fall and they survived and grew. Replanted them in the garden.