Lisbon Jacaranda Azulejo Print

Jacaranda trees arrived in Lisbon from Brazil in the early nineteenth century. Portuguese botanist Félix Avelar Brotero cultivated them at the Ajuda Botanical Garden and distributed seeds for planting around the city. Each late spring, their purple-blue flowers now appear along avenues and squares across Lisbon.

That seasonal colour sits naturally beside another defining part of the city: azulejo façades. Glazed tiles cover houses, churches, stations and shops, with blue-and-white schemes especially familiar in older streets. The two features come from very different histories — one botanical and transatlantic, the other architectural — but both have become ordinary parts of walking through Lisbon. Their meeting is therefore rooted in the city itself rather than in a generic Portuguese decorative theme.