The Brazilian spider flower has to be one of my favourite flowers of autumn in Sydney. The purple flowers take what is a rather ordinary small tree into a fabulous one. Its a tree that can reach four metres tall, but is also able to be trained as a vine-I haven’t seen this though so can’t say how good it looks or how easy to achieve. The binomial name, Tibouchina urvilleana, has the following meanings:
- Tibouchina-comes from the Latin form of the native name for the tree in Guiana, which is tibouch.
- Urvilleana-used in honour of the French botanist and explorer Jules Sebastian Cesar Dumont d’Urville.
The trouble with binomial names is that they are sometimes changed for various reasons. The synonym is Pleroma urvilleanum.
The evergreen leaves of the Brazilian spider flower are elliptical in shape to twelve centimetres long and five centimetres wide. They are a mid green colour, with hairs on both upper and lower surfaces, but longer on the lower surface.
As already mentioned, the flowers are what make the tree a feature in the garden in a Sydney autumn. The flowers appear as a terminal inflorescence. Each individual flower has five deep purple petals that surround curved anthers. The flowers are followed by the fruit, which is a capsule.
For the best performance of a Brazilian spider flower tree, the following conditions are ideal. Soil needs to be moist and fertile and acidic with plenty of organic matter. Full sun is also great, but in hotter climates, some afternoon shade would help these trees thrive if available. It always helps to know what sort of environment a species evolved in to help provide the right conditions for cultivation-for this one, it is a native of the rainforests in Brazil.
There are not too many problems for this tree. Scale and mealybug could be potential pests and if the soil is waterlogged, there is the potential for root rot to occur, so do ensure that the conditions remain good for the tree, and it will stay healthy and less prone to pests.
This is another plant that I would gladly have in my garden any time. It is the flowers that do it, for sure. It is also a tree that doesn’t get too big either, which is another bonus in my eyes.
https://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Tibouchina~urvilleana
https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/tibouchina-urvilleana/