Re: Raintree
Have to put my oar in - even tho we are WAY off track of perennials.
"Raintree County" was one of my fav books as a teenager - many yrs ago.
I still have it, so I dug it out and found the references to the raintree.
First it was thought to be an illusion of a ragged preacher (Johnny Appleseed?)
wandering in the wilderness of Indiana when it was first settled ("Lo, the tree of
life will drop its golden fruit in the new earthly Paradise").
Then the tree was said to be planted by those people who settled in New Harmony to
form a commune - the seeds were of the Koelreutera paniculata - called the Golden
Raintree in its native China and came to be known as the Gate Tree as it was spread
around the state. It grew 20 or 30 feet tall., "bloomed with a delicate yellow flower
and dropped a rain of yellow pollendust and petals."
It was a romantic book that I must have read at the right stage of sappy adolescence
-- never forgot it. I think I'll read it again. (Hated the movie - didn't match my
imagination)
--
Barb
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