I give you two trees

Because the internet was down yesterday I couldn't post to the blog. So today I send you two trees.

The first tree is quite ubiquitous — from my office window I see two, and they are common around campus. The tree gently snows down delicate white flowers. These are not large, about 5-8 centimetres long. This means, while the trees are covered in them, they are difficult to capture in photographs. Whenever I try to get a good chunk of tree in, the flowers just disappear.

Millingtonia hortensis (Indian Cork Tree or Tree Jasmine)

Most of the tree flowers have very little or no scent. But these flowers have a heady aroma, thick and sweet, reminiscent of night blooming flowers. In bloom, the tree is covered with these small inverted flowers which at their peak gentle drop straight to the ground. 

This makes for a delightful carpet of white around each tree.

This second tree is more unique. I've only encountered one so far. However, an interesting aspect of the trees here is that I can walk by a tree for months without change and suddenly, one day, it has become a flowering tree, pushing out some dazzling array of yellow, red, or blue.

Callinadra surinamensis (Pink Powder Puff)

This is one such tree. I walk under it several times a week, on my way to the night market. Then two weeks ago the tree was transformed.

These flowers seem more suited to a garden plant than a tree. But there they are, starting at about two metres off the ground, facing up from the branches, and climbing to the tree top. This is the pleasure I take in the flowering trees, the sudden surprise of transformation, an unanticipated change from one day to the next.