Jacaranda mimosifolia: This ‘beautiful yet invasive’ plant is in love with Kathmandu for 150 years

As the spring season reaches its peak in Kathmandu, major roads in the city turn purple. Beautiful flowers from big plants blanket tarred roads and busy sidewalks—just to get crushed by speeding tyres and hastening feet after a while. But, if you catch the scene before the blooms are trodden by the vehicles and people, you will feel blissful for a moment.

Perhaps there are few hundred people in Kathmandu who have not seen jacaranda flowers. Maybe, the number of people who recognise it as jacaranda is even lower. Apparently, numerous posts on social media around this time every year suggest that thousands of Kathmanduites mistake this foreign plant for their native ‘shirish’ (mimosa).

Jacaranda undoubtedly is not native to Nepal. So where did it come from? How and why is it so popular in Kathmandu that locals mistake it for some other plants? Why are people confused about shirish and jacaranda, and why native shirishes are less common here than alien jacaranda? These interesting questions do not have easy answers.

In an attempt to find answers to these curiosities, it seems jacaranda is an exotic lover of Kathmandu, which has contributed to the city’s beauty, but still posed threats to.