What's up with this Target? It has amazing flowering trees planted
in its parking lot.
Most of the trees are Jacaranda Trees,
and when they bloom, this parking lot is the best. I have stopped
and taken photographs for several years. The display is
amazing.
But I went to Target the other day, and a different group of
trees caught my eye. "What in the world?" I thought, and walked
over to look. Here is what I observed:
- Weird trunks - some a strange green color, almost luminescent,
with big thorns, in an odd narrowing sort of form
- Very large showy pink flowers
- 18(!) of these trees planted around the perimeter of the
parking lot, various sizes, some very large
- Zillions of hummingbirds zipping around in the trees and
chattering among themselves
- Lots of pods of unopened flowers
- Some special pods exploded with what looked like cotton
inside
- Fallen flowers all over the ground
- No leaves on some of the trees.
Well, I just had to find out what it was. I took some fallen
flowers and a small section of leaves to my local nursery, and they
incorrectly identified it as a "Silk Cotton Tree". Leave it up to
geocachers to get it right. They are "Floss Silk Trees", aka "Silk
Floss Trees", related to the Silk Cotton Trees, Kapok trees, and
Baobab trees.
A few links:
Crazy. Amazing. Why are they here? I've never seen these before.
Does anyone know? (And Target has set the bar pretty high - I now
drive into their parking lots and expect excellent trees.)
THE CACHE: Well obviously this is muggle central, so there is a
very explicit hint.