PAGODA's' photostream

This is a collection of photographs documenting the the growth and life from seed of a family of Pagoda trees.

The Pagoda Tree (Chinese Scholar, Japanese pagodatree; syn. Sophora japonica), is native to eastern Asia (mainly China; despite the name, it is introduced in Japan), is a popular ornamental tree in Europe and North America, grown for its white flowers, borne in late summer after most other flowering trees have long finished flowering. It makes a broad, spreading tree to 10-20 m tall and as much broad.

The Pagoda Tree is widely used in bonsai gardening. The Guilty Chinese Scholartree was a historic Pagoda Tree in Beijing, on which the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Chongzhen, hanged himself.


An awesome poem:
studentsofenglish.blogspot.com/2005/03/pagoda-tree.html

Pagoda Tree
By Mila D. Aguilar

The pagoda tree,
as they call it in English,
is our calachuchi,
the same name we give
to mistresses.

But how strange the name sounds.
Pagoda tree, I mean.
Towards the summer solstice,
It sheds its leaves
Revealing

A body made up of so many arms
Dancing their way to the skies
Their fingers growing
The purest freshest flowers
Heavenward.

This even in its old age.
I have seen it at 50 or so
Joints already gnarled
By so much twisting
Upwards
Still offering its flowers
With the daintiest of fingers.

Without sacrificing the grass.
Other plants could be grown
Below it
Because its leaves don't take
All the sun
And its roots not too much
Of land and water either.

Cut a branch and let it stand
On an inch of soil, then see
New roots grow
Out of the salved wound
Once dried up,
As long as a month after.
Its moisture keeps.

Yet for all that
It's not a pagoda tree to me.
It's still my lovely calachuchi.