While we’re surrounded by winter’s cold, damp days, my mind has turned to the warm afternoons of summer — the smell of freshly cut grass, the sounds of the bees making their daily rounds and that slight scent of multiple fragrances in the air. Days like that remind me of my grandmother’s yard high above the Arkansas River filled with garden paths, flowering hedges (loved by the bees) and huge wisteria vines with their captivating smell. And, while the yard had plenty of places to hide, build forts overlooking the river and an old crabapple tree that produced an endless supply of projectiles, the yard also possessed a very special and prized spot: a mimosa tree.
Albizia julibrissin is the tree’s scientific moniker, paying tribute to the Italian nobleman Filippo degli Albizzi who brought the tree from its southwestern and eastern Asia roots to Europe in the 18th century. Julibrissim is a concocted word mangling Persian words for “silk” and “flower.” It was these pink “silks” that attracted my grandmother to the mimosa. She loved all things pink. The tree’s long seedpods clumped at the tip of each branch contain as many as eight seeds that can be carried over a long distance. Many people in the U.S. consider mimosas a weed or an invasive nuisance. But that is an all-too-adult attitude that does the tree no justice.
For children, mimosas are the perfect tree. From their earliest days, their trunks grow in antler-like forks, producing an easy roadmap to the top even for small tykes; their low, wide branches offer the perfect foundation for a beginner treehouse; and their summer pink blossoms are shaped like prehistoric relics and produce a unique aroma that signals naptime in a swinging hammock. Even in autumn, the trees’ long seedpods and exotic-looking leaves bring joy to small hands.
During the last 20 years, my many runs, walks and bike rides along the Arkansas River Trail between Murray Lock and Dam and the I-430 bridge at all times of the year have produced that happy flashback to fragrant summers aloft in grandmother’s mimosa. Just below her long-ago home atop the River Ridge neighborhood lies a clump of mimosas no doubt deposited by birds or wind. They line the old Riverfront Drive on both sides of the road. In the summer the boughs drape over the pathway, the blossoms swaying above the trail’s speedy cyclists or strolling pedestrians. The neighboring cottonwoods, sweet gum, sumac, oaks and hickories seem far too local and common in comparison. Northern breezes in winter set off the seedpods to a loud rustle and rattle in today’s cold, gray days. But in every season, the trees offer promise to the curious youngsters strolling or rolling by.
Last All Soul’s Day I took roses to place on my mom’s recently installed headstone in our family plot at historic Calvary Cemetery. Standing there contemplating the love of parents and grandparents, I heard a rustle in the November breeze. Looking up, I saw the perfect forks and heard the musical rattles of a mimosa. This specimen, no volunteer, but instead one carefully planted by a loving grandmother to remind us all of fragrant summer days even in the saddest of times.