Tall purple
The empress tree across the street from my house is blooming. For me, it’s the highlight of the spring flower show. I’ve written about the tree in my column, “But this is Chico,” but in my blog I can show you what it looks like.
Its blossoms are purple, my favorite color. In the photo, they look pink. That’s because they’re purple on the outside and white on the inside. I’m glad the process of natural selection didn’t lead to the weeding out of purple as a flower color. Looking at it from a theistic point of view, I’m glad God likes purple flowers. To tell the truth, I wouldn’t have minded it if He’d eliminated orange or had not created it in the first place. It could have been worse. God could have made the sky orange instead of blue.
Empress trees are scattered throughout Chico. Without even going out and looking for them, I’ve spotted five others. Does Chico have more of them than other cities or did I fail to notice them until I became aware of the one across the street from my house? They’re so tall, you’d think I would have easily spotted them if they had been a common sight in other cities. I wonder if Sacramento, another shady valley city, has a lot of them.
Chico has so many iconic symbols that it’s drowning in them. But I have a feeling that when I’m old and looking back on the time I lived in Chico, I will be left with just a few indelible memories. The empress trees will be among them.
Trees tremendously affect our sense of what it means to be Chicoans. In the last two weeks the trees have undergone their annual leafing out, which is a major event in the city. The city looks so much better when the leaves are on the trees. They help hide the many deficiencies of Chico’s built environment.