What would Los Angeles be like without the nearly 30,000 jacaranda trees on city streets?

The jacaranda trees have started to bloom across Southern California.

This year’s flowering has arrived three weeks earlier than last year’s, which many avid jacaranda buffs experienced as later than usual.

The Dandora school is also planting trees including jacaranda and grevillea.

The jacarandas are in bloom across Mexico City, their blueish-purple flowers almost mocking in the stifling, polluted air of the dry season.