We have several Texas Mountain Laurel trees in our yard. They bloom with a purple bloom for about one month every year. But we have a freaky one that blooms white. I have asked at every nursery for several years, and no one has ever seen one with white blooms.
Here is a typical bloom on one of the other trees.
And here is a picture of the freaky tree. Our Albino Texas Mountain Laurel.
But this morning I notices something even more strange. Low on the tree, on a different major branch from the white blooms, a purple blooms is popping out. Freaky squared. Hopefully I can get a picture that shows both color blooms on the same tree.
Addendum:
After posting these pictures, I started Googling for pictures of other white Texas Mountain Laurel trees. I found a site that described how to harvest the seeds of Mountain Laurel trees, so I went out and grabbed all of the seed pods that threw on the ground after I cut them off last week. After I prep the seeds, I am going to plant some freaky tree seeds elsewhere in the yard.
Posts
7 comments:
These are beautiful pictures! I miss my garden a lot.
Thanks. I think I am going to try and have these pictures enlarged to hang on our walls.
I have a freaky Texas Mountain Laurel with white blooms. In fact, it was planted by the previous owner, as well. Must be the jonny apple seed of white laurels.
I was having a hard time identifing my tree because of the freaky flowers but managed to find others pictures on the web like yours that helped. Thanks.
Mine actually has both the purple and white on them at the same time...and they both smell like grapes...will have to read how to harvest! Get a lot of seed pods, but these things take forever to GROW!
Having lived in Texas my entire life I have seen a few of these white mountain laurels; however, they are very rare. I found one last year and was able to nab a few seeds from it. (There is a video on youtube also). I contacted quite a few experts on local flora to see how dominant the purple blooms were and they believed that only 1 in about every 10,000 plants bloom white. The Texas Mountain Laurel can also lose it's white color over the years and start blooming purple. I don't know if this is due to cross pollination or the dominance of the purple gene. Either way enjoy your tree, it is beautiful!
Hello, I fell in love with your freaky tree. Would you be willing to sell some of the seeds to your tree? I would really love to grow this tree for my garden. Please contact me if you are interested.Thanks
I would gladly send you some seeds. How many would you like? I have some from last year that I stored. I bet there are Send me your contact information and I'll send them. Mike athomedaddy (at) gmail.com
Post a Comment