Pretoria's nickname "the Jacaranda City" comes from the around 70,000 jacaranda trees that grow in Pretoria and decorate the city each October with their purple blossoms.
The first two trees were planted in 1888 in the garden of local gardener, J.D. Cilliers, at Myrtle Lodge on Celliers Street in Sunnyside.
He obtained the seedlings from a Cape Town nurseryman who had harvested them in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The two trees still stand on the grounds of the Sunnyside Primary School.

The jacaranda comes from tropical South America and belongs to the family Bignoniaceae.
There are around fifty species of jacaranda, but the one found most often in the warmer areas of Southern Africa is Jacaranda mimosifolia.

At the end of the 19th century, the flower and tree grower James Clark imported jacaranda seedlings from Australia and began growing them on a large scale.
In November 1906, he donated two hundred small saplings to the Pretoria City Council, which planted them on Koch Street (today Bosman Street).
The city engineer Walton Jameson, soon known as "Jacaranda Jim," launched a program to plant jacaranda trees throughout Pretoria, and by 1971 there would already be 55,000 of them in the city.

Most jacarandas in Pretoria are lilac in color, but there are also white ones planted on Herbert Baker Street in Groenkloof.

The Jacaranda Carnival is an old tradition that was held from 1939 to 1964.
After a hiatus of over twenty years, it resumed in 1985.
Festivities include a colorful march and the crowning of the Jacaranda Queen.
Pretoria's nickname "the Jacaranda City" comes from the around 70,000 jacaranda trees that grow in Pretoria and decorate the city each October with their purple blossoms. The first two trees were planted in 1888 in the garden of local gardener, J.D. Cilliers, at Myrtle Lodge on Celliers Street in Sunnyside. He obtained the seedlings from a Cape Town nurseryman who had harvested them in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The two trees still stand on the grounds of the Sunnyside Primary School.
The jacaranda comes from tropical South America and belongs to the family Bignoniaceae. There are around fifty species of jacaranda, but the one found most often in the warmer areas of Southern Africa is Jacaranda mimosifolia.
At the end of the 19th century, the flower and tree grower James Clark imported jacaranda seedlings from Australia and began growing them on a large scale. In November 1906, he donated two hundred small saplings to the Pretoria City Council, which planted them on Koch Street (today Bosman Street). The city engineer Walton Jameson, soon known as "Jacaranda Jim," launched a program to plant jacaranda trees throughout Pretoria, and by 1971 there would already be 55,000 of them in the city.
Most jacarandas in Pretoria are lilac in color, but there are also white ones planted on Herbert Baker Street in Groenkloof.
The Jacaranda Carnival is an old tradition that was held from 1939 to 1964. After a hiatus of over twenty years, it resumed in 1985. Festivities include a colorful march and the crowning of the Jacaranda Queen.
Pretoria