A couple of days ago we had to get out of home on some errands. Just as we were leaving we had a request from our son to pick him up on our way back. Unexpectedly and to our delight we finished all our work early and hubs and I decided to take a walk in the park near the university as we waited for our son. I saw this strange little tree and took some pictures of this as I had no clue what kind of a tree this was. Checking out my pictures online told me that this tree is known as elaeocarpus hainanensis.
This tree is native to China and is said to be found Hainan, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam etc. Source
I understood why this tree was in that section of this park now. This side of the park is called the bonsai park. So trees native to china and Japan have been planted all around. This is not a bonsai but would have made a wonderful bonsai since the tree itself is short (just about 5-6 meters tall) and the flowers looks so pretty.
The flowers looked like feathers and were in bunches. These are shaped like the dangling umbrella shaped earrings that are very popular with women in these parts. The blooms in shades of white green and salmon looks so attractive. The fruits are green when young, but turn reddish as they grow older. They are shaped like spades (the symbol in playing card) but with longish tips and are pretty as well.
Here are some of the moneytree bonsai and ficus bonsai. There are a few dozen varieties of bonsai in the park. However, they are not so well maintained. The pandemic has affected the maintained of parks as well. I hope once the pandemic is over experts will trim and re-pot these bonsai. I would mind doing some volunteer work here for bonsai maintenance.
I enjoyed every feet of this walk as there were bonsai trees everywhere. The lovely bamboo walking path was cool and protected us from the evening sun.
Do you see how sunny it was a little away from the walking part path? Our walk around this area I love the sound of bamboo trees in the wind. It sometimes does seem eerie, but these young trees sound rather nice.
Usually there would be children playing and running around, but during this pandemic season there are no children in parks and public places.
There are no vendors of toys, edible stuff and bubble makers anywhere. Those are the things that make parks colorful apart from flowers.
Since maintenance staff are also working in shifts these parks are not really well cared for, many of the lovely flowers, waterlily ponds have all dried and are empty.
Although that was sad we were still counting our blessings as we walked these parks. Happy that the trees and most of the perennials are cared for by the staff there.
Have you ever seen this elaeocarpus hainanensis tree before? Do you like it?
All images used in this post belong to @sofs-su