In November, Buenos Aires Blooms Backward

In November, Buenos Aires Blooms Backward

While the northern hemisphere tips into winter, a transplanted tree from the Argentine yungas drops its leaves and floods the porteno grid with violet.

Elias Andreadis

A Buenos Aires street lined with jacaranda trees in full violet bloom in spring, no identifiable people and no readable branding, for the piece on the city's November jacaranda season

Photo Kylli Kittus / Unsplash

For about three weeks from mid-November, Buenos Aires turns violet as its 18,922 jacarandas flower on bare branches. For the southern half of the world it is just spring on time; for a northern traveler it is a warm season to borrow while home heads into winter.

Why it works, and how to catch it:

Go mid-to-late November; by the second week of December the branches are green and ordinary again.
It is spring here, highs near 25 Celsius (77 Fahrenheit), the summer humidity still weeks off.
Walk the dense corridors, Cabildo, del Libertador, Cordoba, Corrientes, San Juan, through Belgrano, Recoleta, and Palermo.
Do not hunt one famous tree. The jacaranda is a street tree, best by the block.

Only the fourth most common tree in the city, and still the one that stops you.